[Note #2] Who Was Lewis Brooks?

Lewis Brooks’ gift of a natural history museum was made anonymously. But when Brooks died suddenly in 1877, UVa identified the donor and named the building the “Lewis Brooks Hall of Natural Science.” A marble sign proclaiming that name was placed inside the lobby above the front door. You still see that sign today coming down the staircase or exiting the building by the front door, now facing the Memorial to Enslaved Workers.

Brooks retired in 1837 and spent the next 40 years actively supporting social causes. He was a Quaker who, along with several other Quakers, built a retreat along a then rural road now known as Brooks Avenue in Rochester. There, people escaping from slavery through upstate New York to Canada could find critical shelter and food after the 1850 passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Susan B. Anthony, suffragist, abolitionist, and a fellow Rochester Quaker, spent time at that retreat as well. (1)

From Professor Hantman

(1) Blake McElvey, 1965, Names and Traditions of Some Rochester Streets, Rochester History 27 (3):18.