Scottsville Village

Monroe County, New York

Scottsville Village Hall is located at 22 Main Street, Scottsville NY 14546.
Phone: 585‑889‑6050.

Beginnings [1]

Scottsville was settled in 1786, 3 years before the first settlement in Rochester, when Ebenezer "Indian" Allen, Genesee Valley's Daniel Boone, bought the flats along Oatka Creek and the Genesee River within the village boundary. On a knoll on Oatka's northern bank he erected his log cabin; and here, with his Indian wife and his white wife, he lived until 1789, when he sold his farm to Peter Sheffer and went to the Falls, later Rochesterville, to build his mills there. A hillock in the middle of a field back of Eugene Brown's house, at the edge of Scottsville on the road to West Henrietta, marks the exact site of Allen's log cabin. The timbers of the Sheffer house have been built into the Brown residence.

Several of the houses erected by the early settlers are still standing in Scottsville. At the corner of Main and Rochester Streets is a house built in 1814 by Abraham Hanford. His grandson, Rear Admiral Franklin Hanford, was born 3 miles from Scottsville Road, and moved to the village with his parents as a small child. As a youth he entered the Navy and was commander of the Alert. Upon his retirement, he was made a rear admiral, and returned to Scottsville where he resided until his death.

The interior doors of the John Keyes residence are "witch doors," with the panels designed in the form of a cross to keep off evil spirits unleashed by witches.

1. Federal Writers Project, Works Progress Administration, State of New York, Rochester and Monroe County, American Guide Series, Scranthom's, Rochester, 1937