Later Years
Rochester remained an active participant in the growth of the town and county he founded, playing many pivotal roles in the development of its economy and status. He played an active role in politics, helped found churches and banks, and served as the first president of the Rochester Athenænum (which would later become Rochester Institute of Technology). During the last two years of his life, Rochester made few public appearances, but rather spent most of his time with his now rather large family, including his 28 grandchildren still living at the Colonel's 79th birthday.
Suffering from a protracted and painful illness, Rochester died May 17, 1831. He was interred at Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester. His gravestone features a paraphrase of Christopher Wren's epitaph: "SI QUÆRIS MONUMENTUM, CIRCUMSPICE" ("If you seek his monument, look around you").
Read more about this topic: Nathaniel Rochester
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“It is bitter to think of one’s best years disappearing in this unpolished country.”
—Greta Garbo (1905–1990)