The Vedder Research Library

The Greenville Free Academy baseball team of 1930-1931 poses: top, left to right: Charles Raddick, Bill Vaughn, Lefty (Reinhold) Schermer, Chuck Burgess, Charles Winans, Don Blenis, Maynard Makely, Scott Ellis; front: Elmer Carlson, Arnold Nicholsen, Lee Cunningham, Roland Young, Joe Slater, Ken Lawyer; Sitting: Russ Baumann, John Zivelli.

One of the oldest photos in the Historian’s files, this photo, perhaps from the 1880s, shows the Greenville Academy and Presbyterian Church on a bright leafy day. Although both buildings still stand (inset), their current uses have changed to our Library and the Prevost Hall. The Academy served as a regional learning center from 1815 to 1932 when GCS centralization combined 22 one-room school house districts. The Academy was razed in 1905-1906 to make way for a newer Academy. The Presbyterian Church served the community until about 2000, followed by community efforts to preserve this historic building as a community/performance center. One inset comes from the 1992 calendar showing an 1880’s winter view, less well kept. The other inset is current.

file picture

The students of  the Greenville Free Academy High School of the 1919-1920 school year pose, and were identified years later, by Helen Lockwood Conklin (fourth row): Front row: Phil Lockwood, ?Bill Irving, Howard Irving, Lewis Rundell, ? Gifford, Horace Rundell, Ralph Stevens, Maurice Hedges; Second row: Walter Stevens, Lawrence Wooster, Geraldine ?, Lillian Tryon, ? , Violet Tryon, ?, ?, Fradelia Vaughn, ?Howard Story, George Stevens, George Hawley Conklin; Third row: seated on steps Dorothy Irish, Elizabeth Griffin, Ruth Ellsworth, Helen Shaw, Eva Evans, Irene Chesbro, Gladys Evans; Fourth row: Austin Tunison, Gerald Palmer, May Shaw, Florence Newman, Laura Barker, Luella Irish, Lucille Hannay, Marian Stevens, Helen Conklin, Estella Griffin, Beatrice Griffin, Clifford Hunt, Clifton Morrison, Maxwell Palmer; Top row: Nettie Gifford, Izora Spalding, Mary Vanderbilt, Louise Van Dyke, (teacher) Prof. George Cook, Elizabeth Williamson, Anna Hannay; other students in classes, might be in photo, but HLC could not recognize: Agnes Tunison, Lillian Thompson, Dorothy Ingalls, Dorothy Lord, Mildred Winegard, Reider Beylegaard, Margaret Boomhower, Charlotte Birmann, Helen Story, Florence Evans, Muriel Wooster

photo courtesy Bette (Woodruff) Welter, daughter of Helen Lockwood Conklin