Most everyone who lives in this area is familiar with the unusual shape of the City of Rochester. The shape is the result of years of annexations. The long neck to the north is the result of annexing Charlotte. A very narrow strip of Culver Road was created so the City would be connected to Durand Eastman Park. The small area to the southwest is the airport and Genesee Valley Park, and then there is a small strip on the east connecting the City to Tyron Park and Irondequoit Bay.
In addition, there is an approximately 2 mile long by 130’ wide strip of land that seems to run parallel to Ridgeway Avenue in the Town of Greece.
Silhouette map of City Of Rochester
Two hundred years ago the Erie Canal was completed. It ran from the Hudson River through upstate New York and bisected what is now the City of Rochester and on through the Town of Greece and west to Lake Erie. When the newly enlarged and relocated Barge Canal opened in 1918, the old Erie Canal bed through Rochester and parts of Greece was abandoned. The City ultimately purchased the abandoned Erie Canal right of way. In 1922 the City began constructing the now infamous Rochester Subway within the City limits using the old Erie Canal right of way.
In the early 1920s industrial expansion was moving westward and it can be assumed that city officials thought that the subway rail line might someday continue west to support that anticipated industrial growth. In 1926, the City annexed that portion of the old canal right of way outside of the city limits that they already owned. With little records available to know their reasoning, we can conjecture that this was done to ensure the City’s right to build a rail line to the west without political interference from the Town of Greece. The subway never succeeded the way the planners had hoped and ultimately shut down in 1956.
To this day, if you drive down Latona Road or 390 in the Town of Greece just north of Ridgeway Ave., you may notice a row of thick trees; that’s the area where you quickly enter and exit the City of Rochester in the Town of Greece and the original 1825 route of the Erie Canal.
Olde Erie Trail street sign
Olde Erie Trail, a subdivision street just north of that area is named after the old Erie Canal and Erie Canal Commons Plaza, also derives its name from its location adjacent to the original Erie Canal.
I am sure the residents on the south side of Olde Erie Trail and the north side of Ridgeway Ave realize their backyards are adjacent to that original Erie Canal, but do they realize the area is IN the City of Rochester?
1938 Plat Map (rpm00633) showing City’s 1926 annexation (notice Latona Rd had not yet been extended to Lee Rd) Current map showing the areaArea Photo showing current property lines. Monroe County GIS. (Geographic Information System)Erie Canal Commons. Tree line is location of original Erie Canal. Courtesy of Camegi Companies
This week we introduce you to Jerome Combs, the cobblestone baseball player. Did you know that some baseball players would use cobblestones as baseballs?
Well, one player could catch cobblestones and played for the North Parma baseball team and practiced catching them, which people said could not be done.
This snapshot is dedicated to the late Tom Sawnor (1961-2021). We appreciated Tom’s contributions to the Greece Historical Society and Museum. We will miss him and may his love for sports live on.
Jerome A. Combs was born on September 12, 1861, to Lewis Combs and Sarah Anne Combs. His parents moved from the town of Middlesex, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, to North Greece, in Monroe County, New York around 1840 to 1850 based on census data dated 1855 for Lewis A. Combs. The birth of Lewis Combs’s first son born in 1855 in North Greece, coincided with Doctor Abdiel Bliss Carpenter living in the area as well. Dr. Carpenter may have been the doctor who helped Sarah Anne Combs deliver both Jerome A. Combs in 1861 and his brother Lewis A. Combs in 1855, or more likely it was his son, Dr. Abdiel Milton Carpenter.
Map of North Greece 1872
Jerome A Combs property in 1902 North Greece
Lewis Combs owned two businesses and had a reasonable sized farm as well. The first one was the Blacksmith and Carriage shop where the North Greece Fire Department started in 1922 at the northeast corner of Latta and North Greece Road. The second business was a butter churn factory. He had a truck farm as well. His sons Lewis and Jerome helped worked the farm when they came of age. Both Combs boys went to School Number 6 on College Ave. Combs’s Truck Farm would take fruits and vegetables to local wholesalers or the Rochester Public Market in the city. They would load the truck or horse and wagon and be on the way by 4 am to the public market and would spend a good portion of the day selling what products they had from the wagon or truck depending on the day of the week. Some of the Combs’s fruits and vegetables may have been sold to H.C. Phelps General Store, Wagg’s General store on Lake Ave, or Anderson’s General store at Ridge and Greece Center Road (otherwise known as Long Pond Road). Also, the Larkin Hotel may have bought produce from the Combs to serve at meals for patrons at the hotel.
1954 Town Seal on the Town Flag
N Greece Fire House 1926
Directory of the Clio Lodge, 1927, from hipstamp.com
Jerome Combs was the town assessor for twelve years, and he was a volunteer with North Greece Fire Department for twenty years. Jerome Combs was one of the founding members of the North Greece Fire Department. He was a member of Clio Masonic Lodge in the village of Hilton once called North Parma.
North Parma Baseball Team, Jerome Combs is seated on the left in the first row, from RGE News September 1938
But in the late 1880s and the early 1890s, Jerome Combs was the star catcher for North Parma’s semi-professional baseball team. In the team picture attached to the left here, Jerome Combs is seated in on the left in the first row. He propelled them through long winning streaks. But what was more interesting and made him legendary in the semi-pro leagues was his unique ability… What might that be? Was it his hitting stances? Was it his ability to communicate his signals to the pitcher?
cobblestone used as a baseball
1887 Baseball Card from “The Baseball Glove Comes to Baseball, 1875,” www.eyewitnesstohistory.com
It was none of those. It was his ability to catch barehanded. Jerome would catch either baseballs or cobblestones (that were used as baseballs when no baseballs were available to use) with his bare hands. Seen here is an 1891 catcher’s mitt vs. a modern catcher’s mitt; look at how different they are in terms of how the glove sits on the hand and how the ball rests in the pocket of a modern baseball glove.
Jerome would catch baseballs thrown as far as 150 feet and as close as 3 feet, but for the pitching distance, it was 50 feet. One of Jerome’s quotes from the days he played baseball was
“I guess, I was the only man who had the reputation of being willing to catch any pitcher at fifty feet using cobblestones for baseballs. Folks who didn’t know me used to bet it couldn’t be done.”
Old Time Baseball played put on by the Rochester Baseball Historial Society on the grounds of the Town Hall 5-14-2016 – https://rochesterbaseballhistory.org/
One day he was summoned from the fields where he was working to catch for John Smith, a pitcher with a Rochester team, one of those who said it could not be done. They started throwing at 150 feet. Then, it gradually shortened the distance to fifty feet. Combs, described as a gentle giant of a man, came through with flying colors as he always did.
Did his hands suffer any damage?
They did not. He explained his technique: “I learned to absorb the shock of the stones and the baseballs at fifty feet by pulling back my hands with the catch at fifty feet. Then I kept them in shape by soaking them in hot water after each game.”
And on the day, he died his obituary headline read “Former ‘Barehand’ Catcher, Jerome A Combs, taken by death” on August 30, 1940.
If you want to learn about some of our local hometown athletes that have gone on to the pro level or just had some records set at local high schools besides Jerome A Combs, then get yourself a copy of our publication written by Marie Villone Poinan the late Tom Sawnor.
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