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Geneva, New York

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A city of Ontario county, New York, U.S.A., at the N. end of Seneca Lake, about 52 m. S.E. of Rochester. Pop. (1890) 7557; (1900) 10,433 (of whom 1916 were foreign-born); (1910 census) 12,446. It is served by the New York Central & Hudson River, and the Lehigh Valley railways, and by the Cayuga & Seneca Canal. It is an attractively built city, and has good mineral springs. Malt, tinware, flour and grist-mill products, boilers, stoves and ranges, optical supplies, wall-paper, cereals, canned goods, cutlery, tin cans and wagons are manufactured, and there are also extensive nurseries. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,951,964, an increase of 82.3% since 1900. Geneva has a public library, a city hospital and hygienic institute. It is the seat of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station and of Hobart College (nonsectarian), which was first planned in 1812, was founded in 1822 (the majority of its incorporators being members of the Protestant Episcopal church) as successor to Geneva Academy, received a full charter as Geneva College in 1825, and was renamed Hobart Free College in 1852 and Hobart College in 1860, in honour of Bishop John Henry Hobart. The college had in 1908-1909 107 students, 21 instructors, and a library of 50,000 volumes and 15,000 pamphlets. A co-ordinate woman's college, the William Smith school for women, opened in 1908, was endowed in 1906 by William Smith of Geneva, who at the same time provided for a Hall of Science and for further instruction in science, especially in biology and psychology. In 1888 the Smith Observatory was built at Geneva, being maintained by William Smith, and placed in charge of Dr William Robert Brooks, professor of astronomy in Hobart College. The municipality owns its watersupply system. Geneva was first settled about 1787 almost on the site of the Indian village of Kanadasega, which was destroyed in 1779 during Gen. John Sullivan's expedition against the Indians in western New York. It was chartered as a city in 1898.