Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/200

Rh About noon we arrived at Rochester, one of those great arteries through which the trade and traffic of the West flows into the Eastern States, and from these into the West. The city is situated between Lake Ontario and the River Genesee, the many falls of which turn its celebrated flour-mills. By means of the great lakes Rochester has communication with all the States which are situated round them as well as with Canada, and by means of the Genesee and Hudson, the Erie canal and innumerable railroads, it is connected with the Eastern States. Rochester is one of the children of the Great West in respect to growth. It was founded in 1812, by Nathaniel Rochester, and some other emigrants from Maryland, and in the year 1820, it contained 1500 inhabitants; now, in the year 1850, it contains 40,000. That may well be called progress. Its staple trade is the grinding of flour: its mills are said to grind daily five thousand barrels of flour, which is said to be of a magnificent quality.

We were received at Rochester by some friends of the Lowells, kind and agreeable people, who drove us in their carriage to see the lions of the place. First, we went to the factories which are situated upon the high banks of the Genesee river. The water which turns these wheels of labour is brought from the higher part of the river, and again flows into it from the mills after it has perfectly accomplished its labour. It rushes merrily along, in foaming cascades over the flat rocks, like wild schoolboys who, now that school is over, bound forth full of the joy of life into the open air; but if they had not done their work they could not have played. The opposite banks, equally lofty with that upon which the mills stood, were laid out in pleasure grounds, by some Germans, as we were told; there were swings, a shooting ground, and other means of amusement, and as a festival for eye and mind, a landscape of prairie-like extent and