Stroll through Mt. Hope
reveals rich business history

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A leisurely stroll through Mt. Hope Cemetery’s 196 landscaped acres–with the right guide or information–can reveal the changes Rochester has undergone in a continuing cycle of business boom, bust and renewal through the people of brilliance and invention who have passed through this life and on to another.
Indeed, without some of the people buried in the cemetery on the hill, the American business landscape would look very different.
The cemetery, which turns 160 years old this year, is the resting place of such Rochester icons as John Jacob Bausch and Henry Lomb, founders of the optical company that bears their names. Partners in life, they wished also to be partners in death. Their families share a family plot and monument, inscribed Bausch-Lomb on one side, Lomb-Bausch on the other.
Succeeding, even wealthier, generations demanded grander monuments and mausoleums. The cemetery’s Grove Avenue is known as “philanthropists’ row.” Twenty people are interned in the Stein Mausoleum, including Nathan Stein, who founded Stein Block & Co. clothes.
Although George Eastman himself is buried at Kodak Park, some of Eastman Kodak Co.’s first executives are buried at Mt. Hope, as are Frank Stecher and other founders of the great lithographic and printing company Stecher-Traung-Schmidt Lithographic Corp., which inhabited all the space now occupied by the Village Gate Square.
Hartwell Carver, father of the trans-continental railroad, rests in the shadow of a 54-foot-high monument–Mt. Hope’s tallest–erected by the Union Pacific Railroad upon his death in 1975 to recognize his contributions to the railroad industry. Carver helped to drive the golden spike on that historic day 125 years ago, when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads met at Promontory Point, Utah.
The oldest sections of the cemetery reflect Rochester’s early reputation as the “Flour City,” according to Richard Reisem, author of “Mt. Hope Cemetery –America’s First Municipal Victorian Cemetery,” a book published by the Friends of Mt. Hope Cemetery that chronicles the mirrored histories of the cemetery and city.
In the first third of the 19th century, more flour was produced here than anyplace else on earth. Queen Victoria declared that Rochester’s flour made the very best cakes, so she ordered 6,000 barrels worth for her royal kitchens. The Campbell family, which controlled the flour mills in Rochester at the time, is buried at Mt. Hope.
When the flour industry moved west, other industries filled the void, and Rochester continued to grow. George Ellwanger’s and Patrick Barry’s sprawling horticultural business sprang up here in the 1840s and, until the turn of the century, remained the world’s largest nursery, making what had been the “Flour City” into the “Flower City.” All of the people involved in that enterprise also are buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery.
Indeed, “enterprise” was the enterprise of the 19th century in Rochester. People with brains and talent came to the boom town that was our city, Reisem says, in order to make their mark on history–and to make money, too.
When one business or enterprise boomed, and eventually foundered, another–sometimes several–took its place. According to Reisem, in the last century and a half, Rochester has boasted not only the highest per-capita percentage of inventors, but of millionaires as well.
Henry Ford is not buried at Mt. Hope, but George Selden is. It was in a little garage on Selden Street, off Gibbs Street, that Selden invented the automobile, only to see his patent stolen by Ford, as the story goes. A subsequent lawsuit brought by Selden was unsuccessful because the court said changed technology meant that Selden’s patent no longer applied, Reisem says.
It is perhaps ironic that more than a few 16-year-olds have learned to drive on Mt. Hope’s 14.5 miles of roadway.
Buffalo Bill, a.k.a. William Cody, the man who invented the wild West show, staged his first shows at what was once a race track on Driving Park Avenue. These early shows–attended by up to 6,000 people–gave Cody the impetus to take the soon-to-be-famous show on the road, and the rest is history.
He moved to Rochester after Professor Henry Ward went to Nebraska for a buffalo hunt where Cody was his guide. Ward sang the praises of the young, bustling city on the lake, and Cody decided it was just his sort of place. Even though Cody is buried in Colorado where he died, all of his children are buried at Mt. Hope.
Most people already know that two of the world’s most important civil-rights leaders are buried in Mt. Hope: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass. Anthony brought women’s rights to world attention, and Douglass, himself an escaped slave, came to Rochester where he published the North Star, an abolitionist newspaper, named for the Northern guiding beacon that led Southern slaves to freedom.
Another significant contributor to American history whose final home is at Mt. Hope is Hiram Sibley, nicknamed “the ultimate businessman” by Reisem. Besides the local store that carried his name for years before its demise, Sibley also is the founder of Western Union Telegraph, a company that grew from his dream of seeing coast-to-coast communication to become a reality.
Not satisfied with transcontinental communication, Sibley set his sights on the world. With the idea of running a cable wire through Canada into Alaska, down through Russia, and into Europe, Sibley traveled to Russia where he met with Czar Alexander to discuss his desire. Alexander purportedly took a liking to Sibley, and agreed to host the wire that would see Sibley’s dream come true, Reisem says. But after 1,500 miles were laid across Siberia, the Atlantic cable beat him to the punch.
Sibley’s efforts in plotting the Russian wire line were not in vain. In the course of his travels, he spent a lot of time in Alaska, which he discovered to be rich with natural resources and future possibilities. Capitalizing on his friendship with Alexander, he convinced the czar to sell the land–then owned by Russia–and convinced the United States to purchase it.
A few other business notables buried in Mt. Hope include Frank Gannett, the founder of America’s largest newspaper chain; Louis Henry Morgan, dubbed the father of the science of anthropology for his works on the culture of the Iroquois Indians; Margaret Woodbury Strong, the lady behind one of the most well-known and better-endowed small museums in the nation; and Seth Green, the man who invented the fish hatchery.
So, besides being a final resting place for 350,000 people–with 500 to 600 still interred each year–Mt. Hope Cemetery also serves as a testimony to this area’s unique and prosperous business history.
(Mary Anne Donovan-Wright is a Rochester-area free-lance writer.)