Rochester
Rochester (pop. 211,328 per 2020 Census) is a city near the south shore of Lake Ontario. It is named for Nathaniel Rochester, one of three speculators who bought land around the High Falls on the Genesee River. Opening of the Erie Canal through Rochester (1823) fueled rapid growth.
Rochester had an active reform tradition. Suffragist Susan B. Anthony and the abolitionists Amy and Isaac Post lived there; antislavery campaigner Frederick Douglass spent twenty-five years in Rochester. Anarchist Emma Goldman spent her first years in America in Rochester. Freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll and other reformers lectured in its theaters.
