Webster

The name goes back to a speech. On July 25, 1837, Daniel Webster spoke to a gathering in Rochester, and some farmers from North Penfield who had heard him were impressed enough that, when they petitioned the state legislature for a town of their own, they asked for his name. They got it. On February 6, 1840, the northern part of Penfield became the town of Webster, population 2,235. It has grown a bit since: 45,327 people at the 2020 census, in the northeastern corner of Monroe County, with a village of Webster tucked inside the town.

Water is most of the story. Lake Ontario is the northern border, and Irondequoit Bay, an inlet of the lake, runs up the west side and accounts for most of the town's 1.7 square miles of water. Out on the east side, Lake Road follows the northeastern shoreline through the neighbourhood people also call Fieldcrest, and it's one of the roads that takes you into Webster Park: 550 acres of county parkland on the lakeshore with a fishing pier, a family campground that runs from the first of May to the end of October, five lodges, six open-air shelters and the 1.4-mile Ridge Trail.

Ask where someone lives and you'll usually hear the water in it: Forest Lawn on the Lake Ontario shore, Glen Edith on Irondequoit Bay, then Oakmonte down in the central-southern part of town and Parkwood off Klem Road. East of all that are the Wayne County towns of Ontario and Walworth; south is Penfield, which is where Webster came from in the first place. All told it's 35.2 square miles, 33.5 of them dry land, and the town's line on the whole lot is Where Life Is Worth Living.

Someone from Webster mostly wears the lake. The Webster crewneck in Erie Blue is the everyday one, the thing you pull on for the pier or the Ridge Trail. The Lake Road tee in Light Ice is for the people who actually live out that way. And Where Life is Worth Living in Lavender Fields is the motto, worn without irony, which is how Webster wears it.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · monroecounty.gov