VOLUME 2 - WINTER 2002 - NUMBER 2 - PAGE 4

CHURCHILL PLAQUE UNVEILED

On Sept. 28, 2001, Brighton Town Supervisor Sandra Frankel unveiled a plaque on Elmwood Ave. at St. John’s Meadows that reads:

WINSTON CHURCHILL’S GREAT GRANDFATHER, AMBROSE HALL, LIVED IN THE TOWN OF BRIGHTON FROM 1817 TO 1821, OWNING 210 ACRES OF LAND IN LOT #54. OTHER OWNERS OF THIS LOT WERE GEORGE STILLSON, FIRST SUPERINTENDENT OF MOUNT HOPE CEMETERY, AND WILLIAM AND JANET MAXION, WHO OPERATED A HORSE FARM HERE FROM 1940 TO 1983.

Hall’s daughter, Clara, married the peripatetic publisher and attorney Leonard Jerome, whose newspaper office in the Talman Block was directly across Main Street from the office of James Smith Bush, attorney, in the Reynold’s Arcade.

As the next column explains, some have wondered if the Bush and Churchill ancestors of this area knew each other. Based on the proximity of their offices as shown in the city directory of 1849- 1850 below, the answer is “Probably.” There are seven Jeromes listed and ten Bushes. Are all the Bushes related—especially the David Bush who was elected a school commissioner of Smallwood (precursor of Brighton) early in the 19th century? The entries below, left and right, are from the Rochester City Directory of 1849-1850.

AN HISTORICAL CONNECTION?

President George W. Bush is a great admirer of Winston Churchill. But he probably doesn’t know that his great great grandfather, Rochester native, Yale graduate and then a young Rochester lawyer, James Smith Bush, may well have known Winston Churchill’s grandfather, Leonard Jerome, who at the same time in the late 1840s, was a Rochester newspaper publisher.

Retired University of Rochester local history librarian Karl S. Kabelac has been gently searching for such a connection for several years. So far, he hasn’t found it. But he hopes to someday make a serendipitous discovery showing that the two men knew each other, for it seems entirely within the realm of possibility.

Several years ago, Time magazine asked some prominent Americans to nominate their pick for “The Person of the Century.” Bush, then governor of Texas, nominated Winston Churchill, saying that “Churchill was the century’s best example of how individuals can shape history rather than being shaped by it.” And last summer the British Ambassador, knowing of the President’s great admiration for Churchill, presented him a bust of the English statesman for the Oval Office. In thanking the Ambassador, Bush said that he considered Churchill one of the great leaders of the 20th century. “He knew what he believed...and the world is better for it.”

James Smith Bush (1825-1889) was the third generation of the President’s ancestors to live in Monroe County. But by the 1850s, after the death of his first wife and young child, he left Rochester and the field of law, to become an Episcopal minister. During his lifetime he had parishes in New Jersey, California, and New York. Leonard Jerome (1817-1891), the son-in-law of Ambrose Hall, also left Rochester, for a career in New York City among other places. It was his Brooklyn-born daughter, Jennie, who married Lord Randolph Churchill in 1874 and was the mother of Winston Churchill.

The entries below, left and right, are from the Rochester City Directory of 1849-1850.

HISTORIC BRIGHTON NEWS FOUNDED 1999 Leo Dodd, President Monica Gilligan, Vice-President Ken Grip, Treasurer Janet Hopkin, Secretary Board of Directors Maureen Holtzman, Program Chairperson Diana Robinson, Membership Chairperson Dee Dee Teegarden, Hospitality Chairperson Josie Leyens, Hospitality Chairperson Mary Kay Taber, Public Relations Betsy Brayer, Editor, Historic Brighton News Arlene A. Wright, Organization Founder Pat Aslin Helen Berkeley Catherine Zukosky Mary Jo Lanphear, Brighton Town Historian.