Although by 1710 the French had established a post on Irondequoit Bay not far from the mouth of the Genesee, it was not until Ebenezer Allan (called "Indian Allan") built a small saw and grist mill near the falls that a settlement began to grow up. In 1802 three Maryland proprietors, Charles Carroll, William Fitzhugh and Nathaniel Rochester acquired a large tract of land which included the site of the present city. Rochester, from whom the city took its name, established a settlement, largely of New Englanders, at the falls in 1810-12, but growth was slow, as it was not at that time on the direct road between Albany and Buffalo, and the region was malarial. Nathaniel Rochester (1752-1831) was a native of Virginia. He had been a manufacturer of Hagerstown, Md., and after settling in Rochester in 1818 was elected to the N.Y. Assembly (1822). The completion of the Rochester and Lockport section of the Erie Canal gave Rochester the impetus which made it a city, and the building of the railroad a few years later placed it on the direct route between the Hudson and Lake Erie. The course of the old Erie Canal lay through the heart of the city. It crossed the Genesee River by means of an aqueduct of seven arches, 850 ft. long, with a channel 45 ft. wide. The aqueduct cost $600,000. The new barge canal passes through the city about three miles south of the old canal, and has a harbor in connection with the Genesee River, which is dammed for that purpose. Rochester, between 1828 and 1830, was the centre of the anti-Masonic movement and here Thurlow Weed published his _Anti-Masonic Enquirer_.