06/05/2026
Canning the Old-fashioned Way at Cobb Preserving Company
By Bill Poray, Perinton Town Historian
A thriving canning operation was once located on the south bank of the Erie Canal in Perinton just east of Turk Hill Road. There is ample evidence of its presence today, with an early building or two still in existence, now home to a variety of businesses.
Ezra A. Edgett of Newark built the initial plant in 1872, and entrusted its operation to his brother, Ananias. Both had early experience in the art of canning. In 1854 they planted the first acre of corn canned in New York State. They were joined in that adventure by their cousin, 14-year-old Amos Hubbell Cobb. After Ezra’s brother failed to efficiently run the Fairport factory, he offered the operation to his cousin for a reasonable price. Cobb took charge in 1881, bringing his family to Fairport from New York City via the New York Central Railroad. The family’s belongings arrived by packet boat, after a slight delay near Schenectady, where they accidentally fell in the drink.
The canning of fruits and vegetables was big business in the town of Perinton and village of Fairport, with several companies competing against each other. The canning process was primitive, as described in an essay penned in 1944 by Fairport’s Albert Hupp (1875-1961):
“In the summer they canned, and in the winter, they made cans by hand. These were fashioned with tinsmith’s tools by the muscle method. Energetic labor scissored out the cylindrical bodies with foot-actuated squaring shears and the tops and bottoms with lever foot presses. A second and separate press cut a cap hole in the top, about an inch and a half in diameter. These pieces were more or less painfully soldered together. The fruit or vegetable was forced through this hole, the cap soldered on and the filled cans immersed in boiling water, as long as the processor felt necessary. If the cans did not swell up and burst, they found their way to the tables of the public. If they burst, well, the canal was handy.”
After the death of Amos Cobb in 1891, his family continued to grow the business. Farmers from across the area brought their crops in horse drawn wagons, and more fruits and vegetables arrived by packet boat and train. The plant ran day and night during the canning season, and many workers endured 18-hour shifts. An estimated two million cans of fruits and vegetables were packed in 1897. The factory also produced and delivered up to 80,000 cans per month for use at Fairport’s Deland factory as well as the Monroe County Chemical Company. Most were filled with baking powder.
Company housing was built on the Cobb property in the early 1900s. Large numbers of transient seasonal workers arrived each year in the summer months when the canning season ramped up. Many of these were Polish immigrants from the Buffalo area. Several long structures known as “the barracks” were built on a swampy patch of land bordered by Thomas Creek, the railroad tracks of the New York Central, and the trolley tracks of the Rochester, Syracuse and Eastern. It was a noisy and dangerous place for families with small children, who often lived in the cramped quarters for several months at a time.
With advances in can manufacturing technology driven by descendents of Amos Cobb, a former shoe factory on Fairport’s Parce Avenue became the home of the Sanitary Can Company, and later, American Can Company. Eventually the old canning works on the bank of the Erie Canal became a memory. Three early buildings at the former Cobb site were designated Fairport historic landmarks in 2020.
