Genesee Street was for generations the main approach into Syracuse from the east. In the 19th century the area of East Genesee near South Beech Street was also a center of the African-American community. In the decade leading up to the Civil War Rev. Jermain Loguen and his family offered shelter to incoming freedom seekers (runaway slaves) at their home at East Genesee and what is now Pine Street. Gradually as the city expanded east toward the farmland of Dewitt, houses of the well-to-do began to replace the earlier occasional and often ramshackle houses and farm buildings strung out along the highway.
In the 1890s the streetcar came out East Fayette Street to Westcott, and then turned south, eventually leading to Euclid Ave. The parcel of land owned buy William Knapp at the Southeast corner of East Genesee and Westcott was developed in the 1890s. Two fine large houses were built that still stand; the so-called Babcock-Shattuck House and the Levi Chapman House.
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