The community was first called "Allen Hill" and "Richmond Hill" by early settler Ebenezer "Indian" Allen. The village of Mount Morris was incorporated in 1835. It was named after Robert Morris, a financier of the American Revolution, and later owner of the Morris Reserve, from which the lands around Mount Morris were sold to settlers.
The main trade route in the town's early days was the Genesee Valley Canal which ran south from the Erie Canal at Rochester to Olean. The canal was abandoned in the 1870s and later used as a railroad right of way for a succession of railroads, which eventually consolidated into the Pennsylvania Railroad. The Friends of the Genesee Valley Greenway have built hiking trails along some of the canal route.
Mount Morris Academy was an important early school, but it closed in 1867.
Just upstream (west) from the village on the Genesee River is the Mount Morris Dam (550 feet (170 m) long, 216 feet (66 m) high), which was built between 1948 and 1952 for flood control of the lower Genesee Valley. An earlier and much smaller dam, still extant in the village, was used for mills; now it is a small hydroelectric generating station.
In the early 21st century, Greg O'Connell, a retired New York City detective and developer of properties in Red Hook, Brooklyn, bought 19 buildings along the town's Main Street in an effort to revive the downtown area.[3]
Roscoe C. Barnes, who hit the first recorded home run in professional baseball and is credited with the title of the first batting champion of the National League
Compared to the rest of Upstate New York (and all of the northeastern United States), Mount Morris receives relatively little precipitation. A 1910 study reported an average annual total of 25.3 inches (640 mm) of precipitation, making Mount Morris the driest place in New York.[9] More recent data puts the annual precipitation at 27.7 inches (700 mm).[10]
Transport
Mount Morris is on the Rochester-to-Dansville line of the Rochester & Southern Railroad. The R&S Rochester-to-Dansville line through Mount Morris was originally part of the New York (Hoboken) to Buffalo Main Line of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W). This through route, made redundant by the 1960 Erie Lackawanna merger, was downgraded in 1963 with the abandonment of a portion of the line between nearby Groveland and Wayland, over torturous Dansville Hill. The Erie Lackawanna Railway thereafter operated over the far easier grades of the former Erie Railroad, via Hornell, to Binghamton and Hoboken.
In addition to the DL&W, Mount Morris was served by three other railroads: 1) It was served by the Rochester-Avon-Mount Morris line of the Erie Railroad from c. 1860 to 1940. From 1907 to 1934 this offered frequent electric railway service from Mount Morris to Rochester. The Erie line to Mount Morris was abandoned in 1940. 2) The Dansville and Mount Morris Railroad (and predecessor Erie & Genesee Valley RR) linked its namesake communities from c. 1871 to 1940. The Mount Morris segment of the railroad was abandoned with the loss of its connection to the Erie in 1940. 3) The Pennsylvania Railroad (and predecessors) served Mount Morris from c. 1882 to c. 1963 on its Olean-Hinsdale-Rochester branch line. The PRR through Mount Morris was abandoned in 1963, and the right-of-way now forms the basis of the Genesee Valley Greenway.
Mount Morris is now the location of the junction with the R&S's branch to the Hampton Corners salt mine. The Hampton Corners line was built in the 1990s and is one of the newest railroad lines in New York state.
As of the census[12] of 2000, there were 3,266 people, 1,307 households, and 794 families residing in the village. The population density was 1,606.0 inhabitants per square mile (620.1/km2). There were 1,412 housing units at an average density of 694.3 per square mile (268.1/km2). The racial makeup of the village was 94.18% White, 1.13% Black or African American, 0.28% Native American, 0.67% Asian, 2.51% from other races, and 1.22% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.79% of the population.
There were 1,307 households, out of which 29.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.6% were married couples living together, 16.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.2% were non-families. 31.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 13.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.94.
In the village, the population was spread out, with 23.9% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 27.4% from 25 to 44, 20.8% from 45 to 64, and 19.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.1 males.
The median income for a household in the village was $31,792, and the median income for a family was $37,143. Males had a median income of $32,464 versus $20,052 for females. The per capita income for the village was $15,107. About 12.0% of families and 14.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.8% of those under age 18 and 10.8% of those age 65 or over.
^Numbers represent an alphabetical ordering by significant words. Various colorings, defined here, differentiate National Historic Landmarks and historic districts from other NRHP buildings, structures, sites or objects.
^The eight-digit number below each date is the number assigned to each location in the National Register Information System database, which can be viewed by clicking the number.
