Victor (New York): The History of a Town

Victor, New York, a prime target of the rapid expansion of suburban Rochester, is the fastest-growing township in Ontario County. It is also home of the state's only park devoted to the American Indian, on the site of Ganondagan, a Seneca village burned by a French army in 1687. Now in its third printing, this lavishly-illustrated book by a trained journalist portrays the forces which shaped and still shape the town, with the aid of 159 photographs plus charts, maps, chronology, extensive notes and an index. In this book, Victor's history is broken into seven periods: its geologic past, Indian inhabitants (10,000 BC to 1788), arrival of New England settlers (1788-1812), initial development (1812-1865), the flourishing Victorian era (1865-1913), Depression years and recovery (1913-1946) and suburban growth, inevitable since Governor Thomas E. Dewey broke ground in Victor for the western section of the New York State Thruway in 1946. The area around the Victor interchange is now ! a center for high tech industry as carefully-planned residential development draws the town's population toward 8,000.