Churches and Charities.— There are 155 churches in Rochester. The first congregation (Presbyterian) was formed in 1815; the Roman Catholic diocese of Rochester was created in 1868. Of the seven cemeteries the oldest is Mount Hope, opened in 1838, remarkable for its natural beauty, owing to the undulations of the ground in every direction. There are five orphan asylums, three of which art under Catholic control, one under Jewish. In 1822 the Female Charitable Society was organized, from which has risen the kindred institutions of to-day, including, besides the hospitals and asylums, the Industrial School, the Home for the Friendless, the Humane Society, the Chil dren's Aid Society, the Society for the Organi zation of Charity and a host of other associa tions for relieving distress, the most of which are connected, more or less •directly, with the various churches.
Public Service.-- In 1873 the Holly system of waterworks was introduced for fire protec tion. In the same year pipes were laid to Hem lock Lake, 28 miles away, by which water that is unsurpassed, possibly unequaled in its purity by any other city in the United States, is ob tained for drinking and other purposes; 39, 500,000 gallons are delivered daily through con duits; there are within the city limits 452.5 miles of distributing mains, and 5,711 hydrants; the total cost of the works was $12,926,907.19. The street cleaning is done by many water carts, instead of ' by the unsanitary means of dust-raising brooms. It is probably owing, partly, to the agencies just described that Roch ester is one of the healthiest cities of the Union, the annual •death rate during five years averag ing 14 to the 1,000. The police force consists of 407 uniformed men; the fire department has 402 men with 17 steamers, 23 hose carts, 10 truck companies and two water towers, and one protective volunteer company. The meteorologi cal records of the 33 years show that the mean annual temperature was 47.3°, and the mean maximum the mean minimum 392°, the absolute maximum 99°; the absolute minimum 14° below zero; the mean annual precipitation 34.5 inches, the average number of clear days annually 83, partly cloudy 126, cloudy 156.
Rochester has always been free from over. whehning calamities. The worst two disasters, financially, in its history, in neither of which was a single life lost, were the great flood of 17 Mardi 1865, when much of the city was under water for two days, doing a million dollars worth of damage; and the fire of 26 Feb. 1901, which devastated a large portion of the drygoo& district and inflicted a loss of $3,000,000. Roch ester has a well-supplied electric street car sys tem with 144 miles of track, besides interurban lines that run in every direction. There are two telephone systems in the city, one a home enterprise.
History.— In 1789 a sawmill and grist mill were built on the west bank of the river by Ebenezer Allan — commonly called "Indian Allan* from his lifelong association with the savages — who received, as compensation for the work, from Phelps and Gorham, the owners of the land, 100 acres surrounding those pioneer structures. Though no settlement was made at
the time, that tract became the nucleus of the future city. In 1803 it was bought by CoL Na thaniel Rochester, Col. William Fitzhugh and Maj. Charles Carroll, all of Maryland, for $17.50 per acre. Some scattered dwellings were built in the vicinity within the next few years, but no house was erected in what was then called Rochester, after the first-named proprietor, un til 1812, when a log cabin was built on the spot that has ever since been known as the Four Corners. Other residences soon went up, in one of which the first white child was born 2 Dec. 1814. Settlers from the New England States came pouring in and when the first census was taken in December 1815, the popula tion was shown to be 331. In 1817 it was in corporated as a village, under the name of Rochesterville, but in 1822 the title was changed to Rochester. In 1823 the size of the village was augmented by taking in a part of the town of Brighton, on the east side of the river, and subsequent additions have so increased the area that it now embraces over 20,900 acres, with 401 miles of open streets, 290 miles of which are improved, with 380.2 miles of sewers. It was incorporated as a city in 1834, the first mayor being Jonathan Child. Rochester was the birth place of modern Spiritualism, the famous Fox sisters having given here, in 1849, the first manifestations of mysterious tappings which speedily became known as the "Rochester knockings.* During slavery times, Rochester was one of the centres of the abolition move ment and one of die principal stations of the 'underground railroad.* It was the home of Frederick Douglass (q.v.), the celebrated negro orator, and was the plam in which Wiliam H. Seward (q.v.) • in 1858 uttered in a public ad dress his memorable phrase in speaking of the struggle between freedom and slavery as an "irrepressible conflict between opposing and en during forces.* The government is vested in a mayor and common council, elected for two years, under a charter of 1908. A comptroller, police justice, assessors, aldermen, school commissioners, etc., are' chesen by the people. The city budget is about $6,200,000 yearly.
Population.— In 1910 Rochester ranked 24 in the list of cities in the United States. The population in 1820 was 1,502; (1825) 5,273; (1834) 12,252; (1880) 89,363; (1890) 162,608; (1910) 218,149; (1915) 2480165. This shows an increase between 1890 and 1900 of 21 per cent, and between 1900 and 1910 of 34 per cent. The population in 1919 is estimated at 270,000.