The Vedder Research Library

Main Street (today’s Rt. 81) Greenville dozes peacefully on a mid-winter day, in February, 1924. The intersection lies just beyond the two cars and the Corner Restaurant (demolished in the 1960s) on the left, and just past the white picket fence that bracketed the corner that is marked by the empty gas station today. In the distance, West Street winds its way toward Norton Hill, with the Greenville Theater jutting out on the left, while the houses of the Roe, Cunningham, Botsford families, etc., snuggle on the road’s right-hand side.

The Johannesens of Greenville Center test their winter skills about 1946 on the hill across from the Brinkerhoff house on West Road as it nears State Route 81. Enjoying the anticipation of the “schuss” are Carol Johannesen (daughter of Karl and Mary), and Carol’s uncles and aunts—Thomas and Lillian Johannesen, and Margaret and Morten Johannesen. During the 20th century, a sizeable contingent of Norwegian descent moved to the Greenville Center area (Johannesen, Nicholsen, Salvesen, Gundersen, Mickelsen, Myhre, Lien, and more), adding to the flavor that was, and is, the Town of Greenville.

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.

Some of Greenville’s most dramatic snow drifts have plagued Carelas’s Hill, about a half-mile south of Greenville on SR 32. Carol Adriance poses inside one of the carved out corners during the 1957 winter. An innocent 2015 springtime shot of the same area is shown in the inset. Carelas’s Hill, also known as Fish Hill or Budd Hill, overlooks Lake Barbara, still known to many as Carelas’s Lake.

A snowbank edged South Street (Rt 32) leads northward toward the Hill Street intersection before depositing travelers into Greenville’s four corners. Taken from the road in front of Millard Felter’s mid-1950s house, this photo frames, on the left, the Reinhardt property and the Methodist Church (Upstream Reality, 2015), and, on the right, the houses bordering Hill Street. Cathedral-like elm trees arch upward, perhaps the last twenty years of their prominence in Greenville’s landscape. The inset shows a Spring 2015 angle.

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.

In a Freehold scene created almost every winter since the hamlet’s settlement in the late 1700s, this photo captures a snowy four corners in an undated photo but possibly of the 1930s. The view is from about fifty yards south of the four corners on today’s SR 32 looking northward. From left to right: Charlie Goodfellow’s photo shop front peeks into the photo (2017-Tilley), Morrison house on the corner (2017-apartments), Hall & Wood Store just visible through the trees (2017-Freehold Country Store/Dudley), the columned Antus house on the bend of the road (no longer existing), Doc Lacy’s house (2017-Cutting Corner) and finally Park’s Hotel on far right (2005-Freehold Country Inn).

The transition of transportation technology is captured in this wintry scene in Freehold of a horse-drawn bobsled carrying the Phinney truck. Dated possibly in the 1920s, the photo shows Osman and Fanny Phinney standing on the truck bed and in front of their house and property located one mile west of the hamlet on today’s CR 67. The house was owned by the Phinney family for most of the 20th century, with part of the property becoming an airplane landing strip before expanding into the Freehold Airport about 1960. The inset shows current day view.

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.

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.