The Vedder Research Library

Greenville Free Academy, pre-1906

Drawing hay the old way on King Hill in the early 1900s. Clair Weeks, right, with help, draws the loose hay with oxen to his barn and farm, now owned by Robert and Cindy Lampman, one-half mile on King Hill Road, Surprise.

A showing of machinery and farm implements takes place at Greenville’s four corners. Pierce Stevens, proprietor of the farm implement store, housed his machinery in the then new block building (now part of the firehouse) to the rear of the Steven’s store, today’s NAPA building. The large house on the corner occupied the site of today’s Mobil Station and was torn down about 1946. Further up North Street, Wessel’s Garage, a former blacksmith shop, was nearing the twilight of its existence. The angle of this photograph suggest a shot from the top floor of the Pioneer, which had been erected in 1929.

Having the old way is seen here as David Evans (on ground) and his grandfather-in-law-to-be Bert Griffin drive the ox-drawn wagonload of loose hay to the barn about 1895. This property lies on the east side of today’s Ingalside Road, about one-third mile from Route 81. The Evans farm was later occupied by Maggie Cathcart, and today by Rev. Charles Rice.

King Hill’s Clair Weeks throws hay up to a farm hand as haying was done in the nineteen-teens. Sons Clinton and Gerald are on the right. Clair’s wife was Bertha King, a great-great-granddaughter of Obadiah King and Abigail Rundle, two of the earliest settlers in the area (1791).

Summer in the 1940s met hoisting horse-drawn loose hay into the hay mow on the Stanton-Brown farm on the corner of Old Plank Road and Carter Bridge Road in Norton Hill. Frank Brown, on ground, supervises: l–r George Palmer, son Lee Brown, and two boarders. Lee’s grandmother, Francis Smith Stanton (or Frankie, as she was affectionately called), started taking in boarders in 1901, naming her boarding house Mountain View Farm and then Balsam Shade Retreat. Later, the name would change to Stanton-Brown. Frankie’s children Omar Stanton and Cora Stanton (she married first Burton Winnie and then Frank Brown, and raised four sons) worked the farm and boarding house, a combination that became an economic mainstay in the area throughout the mid-20th century.

Man and machine tame the fields of Ingalside, home for Gerald “Jerry” Ingalls (1912 to 1995). Gerald’s family operated Ingalside farm on Ingalside Road from 1914 to 1972. Photos of agriculture in the 20th century are sparse in the Historian’s files, and the loaning of photos to be duplicated would be appreciated

When Main Street (Rt. 81), Norton Hill was a less traveled thoroughfare, an occasional cattle drive marched by. The building shown served Norton Hill as its school house until the centralization of the Greenville Central school District in 1930 and the new central building (the current elementary building) was utilized in 1932. Currently this building is connected to, and serves, the Norton Hill-Greenville Methodist Church as a Nursery School, Sunday School and meeting room.

Faithful Tom and Jerry help Burdette Griffin plow one of his back fields at his newly acquired farm, Balsam Shade, located on State Route 32 on the Albany/Green County line, in 1935. Burdette, along with his wife Evangeline, added hotel units, a casino, a pool, and all the other amenities that so typically exemplified the mid-century boardinghouse/resort of the Greenville area. Burdette, the son of Burdette, Sr., and Rhue Griffin, died in 2008 at the age of 102, marking one of Greenville’s longest residencies. (This field is the site of the recent balloon festivals.)