In 1810, Col. Nathaniel Rochester left his comfortable circumstances in Hagerstown, Md., to move north to the 155 acres in Dansville, N.Y., which he had bought on his first trip to the Genesee Country in September 1800. The perilous 275-mile journey north through almost impassable mountains took three weeks. On horseback the Colonel led a procession of carriages bearing the women of the household and the younger children, three great Conestoga wagons with household goods and his 10 slaves, and some of his neighbors who came along to help. The Colonel moved north, he said, "to escape the influence of slavery, to set his slaves free, and to rear his family in a free state."

In Dansville, Col. Rochester purchased from David Scholl a plank house, believed to have been built around 1795. Now at Genesee Country Village, evidence revealed during its 1989 restoration suggests it may have had a dependent structure — in which case, the Colonel's large family and the contents of the Conestoga wagons would have been less crowded.

Once settled in Dansville, where he had purchased most of the water rights on Canaseraga Creek, Col. Rochester erected a large paper mill and a gristmill. In the meantime, he began to survey the 100-acre tract at the falls of the Genesee River that he and his colleagues had purchased in 1803, and which contained the ruins of Ebenezer Allan's primitive mills.

After five years in Dansville, Col. Rochester moved to a large farm in East Bloomfield, N.Y., and continued his work laying out what would become the Village of Rochester. In 1818, he and his family of 12 children finally moved near the falls into a house with a large garden and grounds sloping down to the river. In 1824, he erected a brick house on higher ground where he resided for the rest of his life.