Click Here to Return to Milestones
Early after the opening of the northern side of the Ohio to settlement by the whites the natural advantages of the land about the mouth of the Beaver began to attract attention; but for some years the principal part of the immigration went farther up the stream to the Falls or to the opposite side, where the village of Sharon grew into being. Here and there, however, an occasional settler located his cabin and clearing in the immediate vicinity of, or on, what is now a part of Rochester Borough. The earliest of these settlers is not now known, but in 1799 the Reverend Francis Reno, an Episcopal clergyman from Washington County, PA, and earlier from Virginia, built a log cabin just below the spot on which the Passavant Memorial Hospital buildings now stand. An early date is assigned, though no year can be fixed for a log cabin which was built on the site of the present residence of the heirs of Atlas L Lacock; and for one at the mouth of Ucock's
Run, which was occupied by a woman named Atkinson. Near the river bank, immediately below where the National Glass Works now stands, was the log house, owned by Reese Nannah, father of Jesse Nannah, recently deceased, and in which Jesse was born. In the same neighborhood stood the cabin of Jonathan Leet, son of William Leet, whose wife was Susannah Lacock- Another cabin stood at what is now the corner of New York Street and Rochester Avenue, the home of one Earl Merriman, who sold his land in 1817 to Uwis Reno. Samuel Bell, a very early settler, built a stone house on the site of the Ovid Pinney residence, now occupied by Rochester Lodge No. 83, B.P.O.E. Two other log cabins are known to have been built at a very early period, one near the mouth of the Beaver, in which lived a ferryman named Benjamin Pounds, and one farther up, beyond McKinley's Run, the home of a man named Wehr.
What is now Rochester has had several different names. In the deeds of Hemphill and Hinds, and in their plans of lots made about 1834, the name "East Bridgewater" occurs. This seems to have been applied to that part of the place immediately opposite Bridgewater. In a deed from James A Sholes to Titus W. Power, dated 1836, the name "Fairport" is used. Both names were used by M.T.C. Gould in an article published in Hazzard's Register of Pennsylvania for 1835, and seem to designate two separate parts of the collection of houses in what became the village of Rochester. He says: "East Bridgewater and Fairport," quite in their incipient stage, promise soon to attain a respectable rank among their neighbors. Mr. Ovid Pinney has invested some thirty thousand dollars in lands at the above places, and is preparing to build up a large town." Two years later the name "Fairport" would appear to have gained acceptance for the place as a whole. Ile Pittsburgh Business Directory, published by Issac Harris, in 1837, so refers to it. Another name for this place in early days was "Beaver Point". This was frequently employed in addressing letters and other mail matter.
Rochester, the present name of the town, was probably given to it some time between 1837 and 1840. The honor of first giving this name to the town is assigned by Richard's History of Beaver County (page 477), to Ovid Pinney, but belongs of right to Mitchell Hammond, who kept a grocery store on Water Street, and had this name of his own selection put upon some goods which he had bought in Pittsburgh and shipped to his home.