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The rope factory that Col. Rochester founded still exists today as Rochester Cable & Wire (Culpeper, VA), now owned by Tyco Electronics. Psalm 119:105 (talk) 10:39, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
An employee communicated this bit of company history to me some years ago. I looked for references online but couldn't find any (sorry). The only reliable source may be the company itself. Maybe someone else can help. Psalm 119:105 (talk) 10:33, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding his inclusion in Category:People from Rochester, New York. If he founded the city as an older adult, he isn't really "from" there. Being "from" somewhere implies that you were born there or grew up there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.168.1.102 (talk • contribs)
The "Col. William Fitzhugh" in the article is linked to the Wiki-article on "William Fitzhugh", a landed gentleman who owned Chatham Manor near Fredericksburg VA.
It's NOT the same man. William Fitzhugh of Chatham was NOT a Colonel and, as near as we can determine, didn't own property in Maryland. (He owned a lot of land but not there.) His death in 1809 also seems to contra-indicate that he was engaged in these Md. land deals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottnfred (talk • contribs) 00:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rochester's ownership of slaves during this period of his life is well-documented. Additional evidence does indicate that Rochester also participated in the purchase, sale and leasing of slaves.
"During his time in North Carolina and Maryland, Rochester was an active participant in the slave trade with a sophisticated financial role that complemented his ventures... Having evidently amassed considerable wealth by the end of the American Revolution, Rochester began investing in slaves shortly thereafter... In March 1779, he and Hart, along with several others, pooled their collective resources of 14,384 pounds, 8 shillings and 4 pence to buy 'Negroes &tc.' Historian Stanley Engerman estimates that, accounting for inflation, the price of a slave was equivalent to $30,000 today. Rochester also considered the rental value of slaves he purchased for himself and occasionally supplemented his own income by hiring his own slaves out to others. For example, when Rochester purchased 30-year-old Nedd from Thomas Critcher in 1783, the slave was already on contract to work for another man, Thomas Satterwhite...Rochester continued to make financial investments in purchasing and selling wholesale groups of slaves in the years that followed. Rochester's attitude toward the effects such transactions might have on the lives of the African Americans seems to have been somewhat ambiguous. He merrily described a 1790 slave buying and selling expedition as an "Adventure to the Eastern Shore,"" but in a memorandum likely written by Rochester in the same year, he took care to provide detailed personal information about 12 slaves being offered for sale in Frederick, Maryland."
"We Called Her Anna": Nathaniel Rochester and Slavery in the Genesee Country, Pages 6-8, http://www.rochester.lib.ny.us/~rochhist/v71_2009/v71i1.pdf Mdiggory (talk) 03:12, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
