The Vedder Research Library

Youngsters frolic and enjoy winter skating on the Greenville Pond, tentatively set in the 1970s. Skaters on the pond (often cleared by the Cunningham family) were often photographed in the first half of the 20th century. This fountain, right, is but one of many that have graced the pond (other fountains, at times, rest near the pond’s bank).

A March 29, 1932 spring storm intrudes on South Street, Greenville. The photographer is standing near the four corners, looking southward. The second structure on the right still stands, today’s Ciani & Morris building, while the first building on the right once housed telephone operators, and has since been razed. Left and right rows of residences nestle behind the maple trees that once lined the street. If the picture had been taken four years earlier, the Greenville Hotel (Glen Royal) front would have been visible on the right edge of the photo but the old hotel was demolished to make way for the Pioneer Insurance building.

Seated on his horse-drawn cutter, Harry Adriance waits for his wife Millie (person with back toward camera) to voyage home on Hill Street on a wintry day in 1939. In a scene reminiscent from an earlier century (if not for the 1930s-vintage cars), this photo was taken from the upper story of the Pioneer Insurance building (southwest corner of Greenville, today the Town Offices). Across the street is SR 32 heading north, with the large colonial house on the corner (the gas station replaced it in mid-1940s), a small building that once served as the Greenville Local printing shop, Wessel’s garage (a blacksmith shop previously), with the elms on the left edging the Greenville pond. In the 2014 inset, Harry and Millie’s daughter Carol duplicates her mother’s position.

The recently windswept, barren northeast corner of Greenville’s center sports new life with the advent of Corner Station Café, owned by Tom Briggs and Brian Wickes. A classic colonial clapboard house, with a picket fence, had graced the corner until the mid-1940s (see January), followed by a gas station that served Greenville’s auto needs until about 2010 (inset, 1996). This transformation is most welcome in Greenville but even more so here as it serves as one of the focal points for travelers entering Greenville. The inset shows owner Tom Briggs.

This unusual angle starts a couple hundred feet south of Greenville’s four corners and looks northward. On the far left is a glimpse of the decks and roof of the Greenville Hotel, an important stop on the Coxsackie Turnpike that connected Greenville and westward points heading to the Susquehanna Turnpike and to the Schoharie Valley. Scanning left to right, the viewer looks across the pond to the Greenville Academy; up North Road (Rt 32) between the parade of elm trees; and, on the right, the stately house and picket fence that occupied the northeast corner until the gas station took its place in the mid-1940s which then yielded recently to the new restaurant.

Whether it be deep snow, strong winds, frigid temperatures, heat waves, high water, freshets, drought, etc., Greenville area residents talk about, are affected by, and remember these events. A common visitor to Greenville’s four corners is high water, this one from June 24, 1944. Upper left shows Wessel’s Garage in center (Deyo blacksmith previous, Mangold Realty today). Upper right shows the Pioneer Building, today the Town Hall; beyond is the Corner Restaurant (razed in the early 1960s) and in the foreground was a shed/garage used by the Greenville Hotel and then used to store the town’s fire truck. Beneath each photo is the current spot.

The Office Force, along with the Elective Officers, pose in front of the Pioneer Building in July 1958. Front row: Marion Bryan, Frances Hladik, Cynthia Ford, Marie Shaw; Second row: Beryl Horton, Shirley Teator, Gail Welter, Phyllis McKnight, Ann Milett, G. Irene Tompkins; Third row: Anne Youmans, Joan Tallman, Anne Pollack, Loretta Lounsbury, Joan Kinscheaf, Sabina Barber, Wilma Ingalls, Helen Nordlund; Fourth row: R. C. O’Keefe, C. Homer Hook, Charles Thomas, Harry A. Backer, Carl Schultz, Walton Nordlund, David Elsbree, Maxwell S. Palmer, Pierce W. Stevens, George C. Morgan. The insurance company had its start in Greenville in 1856 as the Village Fire Insurance Company, enduring until about 2000. In 2003, the Town of Greenville purchased the building for its Town Hall.

A placid day in 1938 Greenville shows a scene both similar and different from 2018. Taken from the pond’s spillway, the photo shows the Wessel Garage (Socony sign), today the site of Mangold Realty (site of blacksmith shop, Flach’s Barbershop). Just to the left is a house that many remember as the Perkowski house, today the Greenville Pioneer newspaper building (Andrea Macko). To the left of that house, nestled behind the trees and alongside the cemetery driveway, stood the white house associated with Charlotte Story, and no longer standing.

A favorite Greenville site to photograph, the Greenville Pond is particularly photogenic in the winter, especially in winters past when the ice froze regularly and the snow that fell was cleared to make way for skaters. This scene shows a game of Snap the Whip, where a line of skaters held hands and skated a circle, with the outermost skaters moving the fastest and usually the first to “snap” the connection. Although undated, the photo is believed to be of the 1910-1920 era, after the old Academy was razed in 1905 and replaced by this building (now the main part of the Library) but before the classroom addition of the mid-1920s.

One intrepid photographer captured this January 1938 flooding of the Greenville Pond. This photo looks across the pond from the library lawn. From the left: the Pioneer Insurance building (not even a decade old yet after replacing the Greenville Hotel; current Town Offices); in the background, the cupola-crowned carriage barn of the Vanderbilt residence on South Street (today, property of the Greenville Arms ); the small shed that had seen service as the fire house for the town; and, rightmost, the Vanderbilt Theater in its heyday, serving as Greenville’s community and cultural center (it was razed in the early 1980s, today the site of Cumberland Farms). Elms trees dignified the town center until the Dutch Elm blight caused their destruction. The inset shows today’s buildings obscured by the summer growth of young trees.

A mid-winter peacefulness settles over Greenville’s four corners in February 1945. Elms still reign supreme, even more so in the black & whiteness of winter. On the left edge peeks the library building while, on the right, Wessel’s Garage solidly sits. The inset shows a busier road, with today’s Tommy’s Hot Dogs blocking the view of Mangold Realty, the site of Wessel’s Garage.

A neat dredging of the Greenville Pond drew spectators as it neared completion in this mid-July, 1949 photo. On the left, Wessel’s Garage was nearing its end, to be replaced by the new barbershop (today, Mangold’s Realty). Right-center shows the Stevens Farm Store. On the right, just visible is the Stevens Store extension. The laid up stonewall edging was “improved” later by the riprap of today. It seems the pond is (should be) dredged every ten to twenty years. Earlier calendar photos have shown a 1930s and a 1970 dredging. The 2000s awaits its first dredging. The inset shows the current angle.

Another Mildred Reinhardt sketch gracing a calendar cover

This innocuous picture of men spraying water from a hose into the Greenville Pond is actually a benchmark photo for the Greenville community. The need for fire protection culminated in a September 1939 meeting of 28 people, presided by Millard Felter, with the purpose of organizing what would become the Greenville Volunteer Fire Company. Almost two months later, the company took possession of its first fire truck, a 1939 Sanford 500 GPM pumper. This photo shows an early test in temperatures cold enough to create ice on the overhead lines. The structure in the background is Wessel’s Garage, today’s Mangold Realty site.