Former University of Rochester professor Herman Fairchild once claimed “The territory about the city of Rochester (NY) is unsurpassed in variety and excellence of its geologic structures and scenic features”. The Crescent Trail in the town of Perinton, NY provides a direct way for anyone to experience up close this region for themselves. Such experiences resulted in a series of essays by the author and others that were originally published in the Crescent Trail News. The essays combine the authors’ personal experiences walking through the landscape and among the and plants with both hard-to-find historical writings and contemporary studies. Together they bring that environment to life. Those essays and some new information are brought together for the first time in this book.

While on one level, this work can be a guide book for anyone exploring the region, more importantly it can help us understand how forces, some ancient and some contemporary, influence our lives. Through this understanding, we gain a deeper sense of place. And, as the author and conservationist Paul Gruchow observed, “with out a sense of place ... we will never be truly human.”

Douglas G. Stinson was appointed to the Perinton, NY Conservation Board in 1986 and served as chairman from 1989 until 1998. Over that same period he was editior of the Crescent Trail News. Stinson served on the town’s 1989 Master Plan update committee and was the principal author of the 1990 Perinton Natural Resources Inventory. Stinson holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from New College in Sarasota Florida and a PhD in physics from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.