Rochester
can boast a fair number of interesting citizens who continue to walk among us,
but many that have shuffled off this mortal coil remain the subject of endless
fascination. These former Rochesterians may not be as
well known as groundbreaking giants like abolitionist Frederick Douglass,
activist Susan B. Anthony, and inventor George Eastman, but their place in
history is nonetheless guaranteed.
William F. Cody, aka
Buffalo Bill, kept a home in Rochester
for few years, and he was off plying his trade as the greatest showman of all
time when he received word in April of 1876 that scarlet fever had claimed the
life of his only son, Kit Carson Cody, at the age of five. Young Kit is buried
in MountHopeCemetery, as are two of Kit’s
sisters, who were returned to Rochester
upon their deaths to be with their brother. After the heartbreaking loss of his
son, Buffalo Bill developed a fatherly attachment to a 7-year-old orphan named
Johnny Baker, who would become a world-famous sharpshooter in his own right
known as the Cowboy Kid. Baker and his wife are also, for some reason, interred
in MountHope,
despite the fact that he died in 1931, well over a decade after Buffalo Bill
Cody went to that great Wild West Show in the sky.
The chief suspect in history’s most
famous unsolved serial killings is buried in Rochester.
Irish-born Francis Tumblety moved here as a young
lad, eventually earning a very good living selling very questionable health
remedies. In late summer 1888 the number of breathing prostitutes was on the
decline in London’s Whitechapel district, and Tumblety,
who had arrived in England
sometime the previous year, was arrested on suspicion of the murders. He was
released thanks to a dearth of evidence, though the butchery coincidentally
ceased a couple of weeks after he left for France
in the fall of 1888. The grave marker in Lake Avenue’s
HolySepulchreCemetery
spells his name as Tumuelty, and more than a few
historians have called him Jack the Ripper.
Sam Patch, the first renowned US
daredevil, never lived in Rochester,
but he didn’t exactly get to leave it either. After Patch became the first man
to successfully jump Niagara Falls,
he decided to try his hand at our 99-foot HighFalls. A crowd of 8000 showed up in
November of 1829 to witness this feat, but Patch’s luck had run out. His body
was discovered in Charlotte the
following spring, with two dislocated shoulders that had caused the Yankee
Leaper to drown.
George B. Selden came to Rochester
as a teenager and in 1879 the young lawyer filed for a patent on both an
internal combustion engine and its use in a horseless carriage. Patent No.
549,160, granted in 1895, became the first US patent for an automobile, and for
a time Selden made decent royalties on his invention. He
won a patent infringement suit against automaking
giant Henry Ford but then lost on appeal, becoming a footnote in history. Selden’s
father Henry, himself a noted Rochester
lawyer, at one time declined the opportunity to be Abraham Lincoln’s vice
president, thus forgoing the somewhat dubious honor of being the first president
to have taken the oath of office upon his predecessor’s assassination.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell became the
first American female minister upon her ordination in 1853. Western
Union founder Hiram Sibley is credited with convincing Czar
Alexander I of Russia
to part with Alaska. Amy Kirby
Post was a tireless advocate for the rights of women as well as an anti-slavery
activist whose home was a bustling stop on the Underground Railroad. Yeah, we
all know Philip Seymour Hoffman is from Rochester,
but what has he done for you lately?
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2006.
