Founded in 1789, Bloomfield is older than Rochester (formed in 1817 as Rochesterville). In fact, Nathaniel Rochester, founder of the city which bears his name, once lived in Bloomfield, as did Abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The crossroads of Bloomfield’s Main Street and today’s Route 444 were first built around factories and a 19th-century rail head.
Where We Are - General
Demographics - General Information
Bloomfield History - Bloomfield Today
Nearby Sites, Events & Activities - Bloomfield in
the News
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20 minutes west of Canandaigua (downtown area and lake)
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30 minutes south of Rochester (45 minutes from the Rochester International
Airport (ROC)
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15 minutes south of the New York State Thruway (I-90), exit 45, Victor
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20 minutes north of Naples
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1 hour 1/2 minutes from Niagara Falls
Northern Spy Apple
The famous Northern Spy apple, one of New York's most prominent varieties originated from a seedling brought from Connecticut in 1800 that was planted in East Bloomfield, New York. To many, this apple was the standard by which other varieties were judged. Its tart flavor and juiciness were unlike any other apple produced. It soon became America's favorite apple pie variety and was often called Northern Pie Apple. It can still be found today in specialty orchards. Most of the apples processed for pies in Michigan are Northern Spy.
First Natural Gas Pipeline
National Fuel Gas Company (NYSE: NFG), was incorporated in 1902 with its headquarters in Buffalo, New York. The Company’s history dates to the earliest days of the natural gas and oil industry in the United States and the Company has been responsible for many industry firsts.
In 1870, a company in Bloomfield, New York bored pine logs and banded them together with iron, creating the industry’s first natural gas pipeline. It stretched 25 miles to Rochester, New York.
Famous Embroidery
One piece in the collections of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is a needlework picture, done by a student at Sarah Pierce's Litchfield Academy Connecticut. According to family tradition, it was embroidered by Orra Sears of Bloomfield, New York, who, while at the school, resided with the family of the Reverend Lyman Beecher. Depicting Chiswick, the idyllic seat of Lord Burlington in what is today London, the scene is worked in chenille, crinkled silk, and metallic and silk threads, with many details in ink and watercolor. In the choice of subject matter, intricate composition, and skillful stitching, the embroidery represents the refinement of taste and handwork that were among the goals of the best education offered to young ladies in the early American Republic.
Bloomfielder Killed in the Old West
FAMILY OF ROYCE OATMAN (1809-1851) Royce Oatman, son of Lyman and Lucy (Hartland) Oatman, was born in 1809, at Middletown Springs, Rutland County, Vermont, and was killed by Yavapai Indians February 18, 1851 in New Mexico Territory. He married Mary Ann Sperry, daughter of Joy and Mary (Lamont) Sperry, who was born February 11, 1813, in East Bloomfield, New York, and also killed February 18 1851.
Rochester’s First Mayor
In 1812, a man by the name of Jonathan Child opened up a store in part of
Peter Holloway’s tavern, The Holloway House, which was established
in Bloomfield in 1808. Holloway’s tavern offered “travel-worn
stage coach passengers” good food in a quiet and restful atmosphere.
After establishing his store within the tavern, Child went on to marry
Colonel Nathaniel Rochester’s daughter, Sophia Eliza, in 1818. Colonel
Rochester lived a mile west of the tavern when he established his city,
formerly known as Rochesterville, located at the Falls of the Genesee,
in 1817. Jonathan Child, son-in-law to Nathaniel Rochester, was elected
in 1834 as Rochester’s first mayor. The Holloway House is now a restaurant
owned by F.D. & M. Wayne Inc., who offer its guests good foods served
in colonial surroundings.
Davis, Paulina Kellogg Wright (1813-1876), feminist and social reformer
Born on August 7, 1813, in Bloomfield, New York, Paulina Kellogg grew up
from 1820, when her parents died, in the home of a strict and religious
aunt in LeRoy, New York. She married Francis Wright, a merchant, in 1833.
The two were active and enthusiastic supporters of temperance, abolition,
women's rights, and other reforms. They helped organize an antislavery
convention held in Utica, New York, in October 1835 and endured mob violence
for their pains. In 1840, Davis joined a women's campaign against the property
laws of the day. These laws made a man the owner of his wife's possessions.
The campaign led to a New York law of 1848 that gave wives control of property
they had owned before marriage.
After her husband's death in 1845, from 1845 to 1849, Davis lectured to women's
groups on the female anatomy. These talks encouraged some of Davis' listeners
to join the small number of women who became physicians. In 1849 Wright married
Thomas Davis, a jewelry maker and Democratic politician of Providence, Rhode
Island. She took the lead in planning and arranging in Worcester, Massachusetts,
the first National Woman's Rights Convention, over which she presided in
October 1850. She accompanied her husband to Washington, D.C., when he served
a term in Congress (1853-55), and while there, in February 1853, she established
Una, one of the first women's-rights periodicals. In 1868 Davis was among
the founders of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. In the 1869 split
of the national suffrage movement she followed Susan B. Anthony into the
National Woman Suffrage Association and played a large part in organizing
the association's convention in New York City. The following year, Davis
died in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 24, 1876.
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Ketchum
Mayor of Buffalo
William Ketchum was born on March 2, 1798 in Bloomfield, New York to a farming family. He was educated in Canandaigua, New York, moving to Buffalo in 1819. He was 21 years old at that time and began working for Stocking & Bull, a merchant house that handled furs and hats. Ketchum became a partner with Mr. Bull not long after joining the company. In 1830 he served as a Village Trustee. During the 1830's, he was a common school trustee. In May, 1930, Ketchum was one of the founders of the Bank of Buffalo. By 1844 the city of Buffalo's population had reached 26,503. William Ketchum was the Whig candidate for mayor and defeated a Locofoco candidate Oliver G. Steele. The debt of the city was said to be near $44,000. Ketchum did not run for re-election in 1845.
Sorority Founder
Clara Bradley Wheeler Baker Burdette was born in East Bloomfield. In 1872 she became one of ten founders of Alpha Phi Sorority at Syracuse University at a time when society looked upon women only as daughters, wives, and mothers. She lived the longest, most active life of all of the Founders. She was a writer, lecturer, businesswoman, philanthropist, a trustee of Syracuse University, and held many volunteer positions that filled her nearly ninety-nine years. Nationally recognized for her achievements, Clara is listed in Who’s Who of America.
Mormon Ties
At the first conference of the [Mormon] Church, in June 1830, the Prophet's brother Samuel was ordained an elder. Shortly thereafter, the Prophet set Samuel apart as a missionary to take the Book of Mormon to the people in the vicinity of Palmyra. On that first day Samuel walked 25 miles without a favorable contact. On another day in Bloomfield, New York, Samuel left a Book of Mormon with John P. Green, a circuit preacher. Green was not interested, but said he would sell the book to anyone that was. When Samuel returned to Bloomfield, no one had purchased the book, but Mrs. Green had read it and believed it. Samuel was inspired to leave it with her. Later Green read it and also believed it. Mrs. Green loaned this book to her brother who read it. Her brother was Brigham Young.
Abner Adams
Abner Adams of Bloomfield established Adams Basin, a considerable port on the Erie Canal. See the Abner Adams House while taking the walking tour of the Town.
Nearby Antique Shops
Bloomfield, NY, is becoming an antiquer’s destination with a generous country mile of local shops representing more than 175 dealers! The shops line the old Seneca Trail (now Routes 5 & 20) in the heart of the Finger Lakes region of western New York. Along Bloomfield's Antique Country Mile you'll find plenty of antique Period and country furniture, primitives, tools, glassware, rare books, stoneware, ephemera, collectibles, antique firearms, and much, much more...
The Radio Museum
Located on the Village Green, Routes 5 & 20 in Bloomfield, New York is much more than the name implies. It is really a museum documenting the history of electronic communication and how it has changed the world in which we live. The Radio Museum is open May through October on Sundays from 2 to 5 pm; and additionally from June through August on Saturdays, 2 to 4 pm. For more information call 585-657-6260 or visit www.antiquewireless.org.
The Vintage Tracks Museum
Located at 3170 Wheeler Station Road in Bloomfield, New York is not a museum devoted to railroad history. It is a museum that tells the story of equipment that travels on “tracks”, like a tank does. The Vintage Track Museum is open May to November on Saturdays and Sundays; open daily in July and August. Call 585-657-6608 for details.
Bloomfield New York is not where one thinks of academy award winning films being developed especially a documentary about the AIDS Pandemic. Yet it is in Bloomfield that Bob Bilheimer, President of Worldwide Documentaries, conceived of the idea to make a film to document the pandemic. He chose to do so in a way that would both tell the story and not leave people feeling hopeless. The film, called “A Closer Walk” has been called “beautifully crafted.” Said Bilheimer, “we felt that it wasn’t enough to just rely on the misery and the emotion, we wanted to dignify our subjects...” The photography is powerful.
With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Bilheimer and his crew began filming in 2000 and filmed and interviewed
people around the globe through 2002. Those in the
film include the Dalai Lama, Bono, and UN Secretary Kofi Anan. Actors Will
Smith and Glenn Close do the narrative. Bilheimer considers it an oral
history of the AIDS epidemic.
Mastodon Found
One of the larger Mastodons ever found in New York State was found in East Bloomfield, New York in 1994. It is now in the Geology storage vault of the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Analysis of the skull indicates that the tusks would have been from 8-9 feet long.
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