White Grape

The Subdivision of the Nurseries

The nurseries about Rochester were destined to make one final contribution to the expanding city as they gave place to attractive subdivisions. When the first nursery within the city, that of Reynolds and Bateham on Sophia Street, was abandoned in 1840, the land was already in demand for mercantile use, but as the boom growth of Rochester tapered off sharply during the next two decades the other early nurseries, all located on the outskirts, retained their horticultural functions for many years. Ellwanger and Barry started the new movement in 1856 when they subdivided a portion of their property on Cypress and Linden streets into home lots and erected small cottages for sale chiefly to their employees. A few choice home sites on Mount Hope Avenue were disposed of in the vicinity when George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry both erected spacious residences.

In the post-Civil War years the city, experiencing an accelerated growth, was soon pressing upon the borders of its nurseries. When in 1875 Jones and Palmer bought out the old Lake View Nursery west of the river they acquired only its nursery equipment for removal to a new tract of eighty acres two miles west, thus clearing the old grounds for building purposes. At the same time H. E. Hooker began to subdivide a portion of his old nursery on East Avenue, prompting words of commendation and advice from a local editor:

Mr. Hooker is laying out some broad parks and avenues through his grounds and planting them with shade trees. One [later named Oxford] to connect with Nichols Park, has a row of magnolias, and Cembra Pines, through its center. Another, intersecting this at right angles, called Brighton Street, is lined on either side with the cut-leaved birch. We hope our liberal, public-spirited nurserymen, in cutting up their grounds, as many of them are, into streets, will try different species of trees on different streets, so as to test their comparative merits. Rochester is capable of settling the difficult question: "What are the most suitable trees for planting streets, avenues, country roads," etc.

By the seventies Ellwanger and Barry had embarked in the real estate business in earnest. Oakland Park was laid out, and on the area between South and Mount Hope avenues, including Cypress and Linden streets, a total of 118 houses were erected at a cost of $250,000. The local papers for the seventies and eighties record many sales ranging between eleven hundred and twenty-five hundred dollars for houses in this area, but buyers could not be found for all, and many were as a result held for rental. The newer nursery tracts further south were proving adequate for that phase of their enterprise, and in 1883 they made their first offer of their highlands to the city for park purposes. But the city fathers were in a mood for economy and failed to see the necessity for maintaining city parks; even the numerous open squares which had long gone by that name had been sadly neglected. It was not until 1888 after a new offer that the gift was accepted and Highland Park made a lasting memorial to the nurseries of Rochester.

The substantial character of the old nursery firm was demonstrated in 1888 when a new office building was erected on State Street at a cost, including the lot, of over three hundred thousand dollars. A contemporary description is worth noting because of the sidelight it throws upon the city whose population had just topped 130,000:

The owners of this most beautiful of all our local office buildings have just expended a large sum of money in repainting the walls and redecorating the stair-cases. The latter are now resplendent in silver bronze which blends artistically with the yellow and blue tiled floors and the bright walls with their imitation brick penciling in bright red lines. Every hall in the building is flooded with light from a line of enormous windows on the right hand side. On the first floor in the hallway stand two rubber trees with their glossy foliage, shining in the light streaming upon them from the windows. These form simply the beginnings of a collection of horticultural wonders which are to render the halls of the Ellwanger and Barry building beautiful with a collection of nature’s handiwork which cannot fail to outrival anything that the hand of man has produced.

Meanwhile the subdivision of the older nursery grounds was speeded up. A forty per cent growth in population during the seventies was followed by a fifty per cent growth in the eighties, and in 1874 the city more than doubled its area by annexations. The boundaries were pushed out on all sides, and many of the nurseries were by this action brought within the city limits. Each had been located on or near one of the radiating plank roads which now became the major streets, and they appeared naturally as choice sites for subdivisions. One drawback was the number of other tracts which were being promoted at the same time, each competing with the other in a mad rush to abstract the largest possible rewards from the real estate boom. Maps of the city in the seventies show these isolated subdivisions scattered around the city borders in a confusion of street and lot plans that barely escaped anarchy.

The nurserymen enjoyed the advantage of being able to keep their lots in profitable use while the street pattern was being laid out and a few scattered dwellings erected. New acres were acquired on the outskirts where the nurseries had a chance to take root while the greenhouses and other equipment were being transferred and the old plots attracted home builders. There were few who, like Ellwanger and Barry, erected the houses themselves, and more regrettable was the fact that few followed the example of planting their new streets with well selected shade trees. Nevertheless the grounds were frequently left in possession of ornamental trees and shrubs which added to their sale value, and many a local place name persisted, helping in a small way to carry on the local nurseryman’s traditions. Those who could wait long enough were finally rewarded, as the city not only spread over all the earlier additions but pressed outward again on several occasions, notably in 1891, 1913, and 1918. Many of the second and third generation nurseries, so to speak, were then brought within the city limits, and in time the pressure of the growing population transformed these areas as well into home sites.

A detailed account of the local remains of each of Rochester’s twenty or thirty nurseries would be lengthy indeed, but it is worth recalling a few of them. When driving out between the giant elms of East Avenue one should not forget that the Genesee Valley Club House on our right with its spacious grounds is Aaron Erickson’s old estate, somewhat reduced in size, where many of the flowers and fruits which took amateur prizes at the horticultural shows of ninety years ago were grown. Incidentally this was approximately the site where the Englishman, Alexander Gordon, started the first nursery on the east side in 1833. A few blocks further on and we note on our right the home of J. J. Bausch standing on a portion of the famous Hooker Nurseries which extended back across Park, Brighton, and Harvard streets, on both sides of Oxford at some points, almost to Monroe Avenue. Indeed it was here that Electus Boardman first planted his tree nursery just a hundred years ago, selling it to Bissell and Hooker a few years later. Almost adjoining this old nursery on the east was James Vick’s seed garden, from a portion of which Vick Park A and Vick Park B were subdivided. A block or so beyond, near present Buckingham, stood the main group of greenhouses built by Hooker and sold to William S. Little as the Commercial Nurseries. The grounds extended on both sides of the avenue over a wide acreage, rented in part from Oliver Culver, the pioneer farmer at this point. Almost adjoining this nursery, across the tracks on the left, was a small nursery of John Carlton, facing on University Avenue. Further out East Avenue, where the Auburn branch of the railroad crosses, stood the Monroe County Nurseries whose proprietor gave his name to Gould Street. Still another nursery was located where Clover Street crosses the avenue.

Driving off to either side one can almost encircle the city as it was bounded in the late 1870’s without passing out of sight of some former nursery location. Turning right and proceeding along Highland we pass outlying grounds of the Gould nursery on the right, the Hooker nursery on the left, and then the Beckwith nursery which apparently extended on both sides, recalled today by Beckwith Terrace. Once we reach Monroe Avenue we are in the Ellwanger and Barry territory, for their grounds practically lined this avenue as far west as Mount Hope. Their nurseries extended to our north especially along South Avenue between Goodman and Mount Hope; as already noted, Highland Park once comprised a portion of their nursery grounds. Turning left as we approach Mount Hope we come upon Dagg’s nursery on the left just before reaching Elmwood. Proceeding west on Elmwood and crossing the river we come upon the site of the extensive Genesee Valley Nurseries of Frost and Company which covered a considerable portion of the area now bounded by Genesee, Brooks, and Thurston Streets and Genesee Park Boulevard. Turning north on Thurston we pass the site of Dr. T. C. White’s nursery on our left.

Unless we are willing to note such private gardens as Judge Gardiner’s on Gardiner Avenue we must travel northward on Glide Street or Mount Read Boulevard almost to Lexington Avenue before we reach another nursery site. Here, however, was a branch of the Moulson Nurseries, established near the western end of the oldest nursery in the county, that of Asa Rowe. We cannot help but regret as we turn east along Lexington that its name has not remained as originally designated, Rowe Street. If we turn north after reaching Lake Avenue we pass the site of the Hanford’s Landing Nursery, where Kodak Park stands today, later acquired by R. J. Donnelly and renamed the Lake Avenue Commercial Nurseries. A mile or so beyond, where Riverside Cemetery is now located, stood the Lake View Nurseries, originally started in 1850 as the Charlotte Plank Road Nurseries.

Slightly to the north and across the river was another late branch of the Moulson Nurseries. As we journey south on St. Paul we pass the site of the nursery of C. P. Reynolds on our left near Norton Street. Further ahead to the right is the site of Hooker’s Genesee Falls Nursery which once provided a fine view of the middle falls. If we turn east on Norton Street we soon pass the site of the original unit of the Moulson Nurseries on our right facing the ball park; today a short one-block street bearing the name of the original proprietor helps to preserve the memory of the Old Rochester Nurseries. Proceeding east on Norton and to the right on Waring we pass the old location of another of W. S. Little’s Nurseries. Merchants Road takes us past the location of T. C. Wilson’s East Side Nurseries and we find ourself entering the Browncroft district, the city’s most recent and most famous nursery subdivision. It is now only a short two miles back to East Avenue, but we must pass yet another nursery site, that of the East Avenue Nurseries of W. M. Hoyt, before we have completed our extended circuit.

The Brown Brothers Nursery, started in 1885 on a nursery site already partly developed by Stephen M. Corwin, became the leading establishment of its kind in the city by the second decade of the twentieth century. Already the older nurseries had largely subdivided their grounds and contracted even those activities which they had moved to fields more distant from the city. Brown Brothers likewise determined at last to move their nursery further out and to subdivide the old grounds, but in doing so they landscaped their home lots with a generous use of ornamental trees on a scale never before dreamed of, so that Browncroft stands, in somewhat the same sense as Highland Park, a popular monument to the nurseries of Rochester.

But while most of the nurserymen turned their attention to real estate, their earlier occupation has not entirely deserted the city. At least seven nursery and seed firms located in Rochester have today extensive acres near the outlying villages of the county, while as late as 1930 the Census enumerated sixty-one local firms engaged in the sale of trees, plants, vines, seeds, and bulbs. But the receipts from such sales, which incidentally were much more inclusive than the items covered by the 1900 Census, were only $349,789. Six of the counties in the state exceeded Monroe’s output in 1930, several of them many times over, among them Monroe’s old neighbor, Ontario. The state’s nursery production has at the same time fallen to second place, trailing behind California, the new leader. Thus horticultural leadership has passed to distant communities as Rochester has become preoccupied with other affairs.

The gradual decline of the Rochester nurseries in recent decades from their previous position of leadership was no doubt chiefly due, first to the completion of their major task, that of stocking the nurseries of the West, and second to the profitable opportunity to subdivide their grounds. But there was a personal factor involved which deserves attention, for Rochester’s horticultural leadership had been the achievement of one generation and had practically ended with the passing of that generation.

The break in leadership was more abrupt because the last of the farmers’ papers which had nurtured that leadership ceased publication in 1891. The death of Patrick Barry the year before was a serious loss. For years he had been the outstanding horticulturist in the city and in 1877 had been the first Rochesterian to serve as president of the State Agricultural Society. William C. Barry carried on his father’s interests and served for many years as president of the Western New York Horticultural Society. Indeed it was not until after his death in 1916 that the nursery business of Ellwanger and Barry was finally closed. Meanwhile the death of Henry B. Ellwanger in 1896 cut off the one of Ellwanger’s three sons who had specialized most closely in horticulture and floriculture. The elder James Vick died in 1882 and Joseph Harris in 1892. Of the outstanding men originally leaders in the field only George Ellwanger carried on in spite of advancing years into the present century.

With ripening years George Ellwanger had become somewhat of a patriarch about the city. He delighted in sending gifts of fruit and flowers to his friends and annually invited his fellow members of the Reynolds Library Board to dine with him on his birthday. In 1902 he presided at a dinner given in honor of George Eastman, a privilege Ellwanger enjoyed as the oldest member of the board of trustees of the Eastman Kodak Company. Dr. Sargent, then America’s leading horticulturist in charge of the Arnold Arboretum at Boston, was a frequent correspondent, and wrote in 1901 to ask permission to name a new species of the American thorn after his aging friend. Finally, after his wife and a second son had passed on, George Ellwanger died late in November, 1906. The Ellwanger and Barry Nursery did not close its books until July, 1918, two years after the death of William C. Barry, and commercial dominance of Rochester nurseries continued for at least a decade into the twentieth century, but horticultural leadership had passed.

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