Canandaigua

The city carries its Seneca name without apology and mostly without explanation. The Ontario County Courthouse on Main Street is where Susan B. Anthony was tried in June 1873 for voting in the presidential election of the previous November. The judge had written his verdict in advance, denied her the right to address the jury, and fined her $100. She refused to pay. The court never collected. The Treaty of Canandaigua commemoration takes place on the same courthouse lawn each November 11.

Three blocks from the courthouse: Granger Homestead, an 1816 Federal-style mansion built for Gideon Granger, the United States’ first and longest-serving Postmaster General. A few blocks further: Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park, 52 acres of Victorian estate gardens built by Mary Clark Thompson after her husband’s death in 1899. Nine formal gardens, a Queen Anne mansion, the Finger Lakes Wine Center. Open May through October; admission $15–18.

The Canandaigua Lady, a 19th-century replica paddleboat, runs public cruises May through October from the city pier at 205 Lakeshore Drive. The Ring of Fire cruise on the Saturday before Labor Day follows the shoreline as residents light the lake-wide ring of flares at dusk: a tradition rooted in a Seneca harvest thanksgiving practice.