The town had sprung up like a mushroom, but no presage of decay could be
drawn from its hasty growth. Its edifices are of dusky brick, and of
stone that will not be grayer in a hundred years than now; its churches
are Gothic; it is impossible to look at its worn pavements and conceive
how lately the forest leaves have been swept away. The most ancient
town in Massachusetts appears quite like an affair of yesterday,
compared with Rochester. Its attributes of youth are the activity and
eager life with which it is redundant. The whole street, sidewalks and
centre, was crowded with pedestrians, horsemen, stage-coaches, gigs,
light wagons, and heavy ox-teams, all hurrying, trotting, rattling, and
rumbling, in a throng that passed continually, but never passed away.
Here, a country wife was selecting a churn from several gayly painted
ones on the sunny sidewalk; there, a farmer was bartering his produce;
and, in two or three places, a crowd of people were showering bids on a
vociferous auctioneer. I saw a great wagon and an oxchain knocked off
to a very pretty woman. Numerous were the lottery offices,--those true
temples of Mammon,--where red and yellow bills offered splendid fortunes
to the world at large, and banners of painted cloth gave notice that the
"lottery draws next Wednesday." At the ringing of a bell, judges,
jurymen, lawyers, and clients, elbowed each other to the court-house, to
busy themselves with cases that would doubtless illustrate the state of
society, had I the means of reporting them. The number of public houses
benefited the flow of temporary population; some were farmer's taverns,
--cheap, homely, and comfortable; others were magnificent hotels, with
negro waiters, gentlemanly landlords in black broad-cloth, and foppish
bar-keepers in Broadway coats, with chased gold watches in their
waistcoat-pockets. I caught one of these fellows quizzing me through an
eye-glass. The porters were lumbering up the steps with baggage from
the packet boats, while waiters plied the brush on dusty travellers,