The Vedder Research Library

Greenville Free Academy, pre-1906

Taken at the intersection of today’s Rts 32 and 81, another Madison Stevens photo shows the Greenville House, also known as the Coonley Hotel, on the southwest corner now occupied by Pioneer Insurance Co. The building beyond the hotel is Hartt’s Store, also torn down for the 1929 construction of the Pioneer. The memorial to Tommy Knowles, lower right, still stands, its use having changed from horse watering trough to today’s flower planter.

The Greenville Academy, left, and the Presbyterian Church stand in stark solitude on this winter day, circa 1875. The Academy was razed in 1905 to make way for the present Library building. Young trees and a decrepit picket fence front what is now a National Historic Register area.

Local Flavor is symbolized by “Matt’s” hot dog stand, next to the driveway to the firehouse. First started by Matt Chesbro (left) in 1969, the portable stand is today operated by son-in-law Tom Briggs (right) who took over in 1986.

The new mixes with the old! Christmas trees and a shawl of lights on the gazebo roof reflect new traditions, while the Academy Building and Presbyterian Church represent the older history. The gazebo was built in the late 1980s as a fundraiser for the GCS band’s trip to Paris; the Christmas tree celebration started in 1990.

Fifty years ago ended a world conflict that many consider the shaping of the 20th century. Even a small town like Greenville was affected in major ways, both by sending its young men and women to serve and by adjusting and waiting at home. A symbol of that time is the Honor Roll that was erected by the pond corner closest to the four corners. Although exact dates are not remembered, consensus says the board was erected during late war years, taken down in the late 1940’s, and its disposal is uncertain.

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.

Long a fixture on Greenville’s southeast corner, this building often served as a store - to Alexander Bentley in the mid-late 1800s and as an IGA store in the mid-twentieth century. It even served as a classroom in the late 1920s when space was tight at the Academy. Notoriety came when the butcher’s son murdered the minister’s daughter in 1935 in a sensational case that headlined regional newspapers. The building was razed in the early 1960s as part of the project that widened Route 81 from Greenville to Coxsackie. The small shop on the right still stands, today as Lafferty’s Realty. The building barely visible to the left and behind, showing much more prominently in the inset, is the Baumann apartments.

Greenville Hotel, from a post card.

This February 1940 scene of Greenville’s four corners evokes the reality of an eastern New York winter. This photo was probably taken from the upper floor of the Pioneer building and looks down east Main Street. A road sign on the telephone pole indicates Route 32 is the crossroad while the solidary person seems to have no reason to fear any traffic. The building on the right is the corner restaurant building (see Nov ‘97) that was razed in the early 1960s. On the left is a family residence, surrounded by a picket fence, which was torn down in the mid-1940s to make way for the gas station. Beyond the home is the Baumann building and the Steven store, on which one can make out the figures of two snow shovelers.

In the summer of 1939, the Greenville Pond underwent one of the dredgings that happens every ten to twenty years. A.J. Cunningham, the man in the distance with the straw hat, is stacking rocks. The library building stands in the background. The inset picture shows a less back-breaking method in the 1970s. Recently, the pond again was dredged, probably the first time since the inset picture. (courtesy of Curt Cunningham, inset

This fishing derby around the Greenville pond captures the feeling of the late 1950s and early 1960s Greenville. The Vanderbilt Theater, torn down in the early 1980s, and shown in the center of the picture, provided entertainment for the community all summer long. Elm trees ring the pond but would soon succumb to an elm blight.

One of Greenville’s favorite wintertime activities was skating on the Greenville pond at the northwest corner of the town’s center. Cathedral-like elms ring the pond. The old Academy building (pre-1906) and the Presbyterian Church form a picture still recognizable today.

One of Greenville’s distinctive buildings before the 1940s would’ve been the house on the center’s northeast corner. Ransom Hinman is said to have been the first merchant on the site, referred to in a deed to the Presbyterian Church from Augustine Prevost in 1803. Information on the back of this picture indicates that the house was built by Edward Wackerhagan and his wife Janet Hart about 1880. They sold it O. C. Stevens who rented the house to Mrs. Peter Thomas, a milliner. Later, Mrs. Steve Hallenbeck, a dressmaker, occupied the house. About 1915, Lynn D. Wessels (operator of a garage in the blacksmith shop, today the site of the barbershop) bought the property. Pierce and William Stevens bought the property in 1945 and then sold it to the Standard Oil Company in 1946 to make way for a gas station.

A classic Greenville four corners picture invites us into Greenville’s history. On the left, cathedral-like elm trees ring the pond. The Tommy Knowles Memorial watering trough, now a planter, anchors the northwest corner. Milo Deyo’s blacksmith shop sits where the barbershop is today (a wheel is visible in the open door). On the right, the picket fence wraps around the corner and around the house that sat on the northeast corner. A dirt North Road, today’s Rt. 32, paralleled with the flagstone sidewalk, disappears into the distance past the Presbyterian and Episcopal churches.

West Main Street of the 1920s shows the Glen Royal hotel (site of today’s Pioneer building), the dance hall, the fire truck building, and the Vanderbilt Theater on the left. On the right is the Cunningham house, the Avery house (2001 – Schwartz), and the Botsford house.

This stone arch allowed the still unnamed creek to flow into the Greenville pond. On the right is Wessel’s garage, the site of the former blacksmith shop (today the site of Flack’s Barbershop. Further up the road is the cemetery entrance, as well as the Charlotte Story house which has since been razed. When the arch was demolished is unknown but the best guess is when the creation of State Route 32, about 1930, necessitated a level road.

Historical marker noting the founding of Greenville

A late-January thaw in 1938 makes for a sloppy Greenville pond surrounded by cathedral-like elms. This photo, probably taken from the Pioneer, shows Rt. 32 along the right side, and taking center stage is the Academy/Library building. Note the presence of the Academy annex even though the central school building was completed in 1932.

The Greenville Hotel had just been razed, and a new Pioneer building was under construction in 1928. This building is now the Town of Greenville office building. On the right, through the metal girders, one can see the ghostly figure of the Vanderbilt Theater (see November).

An aerial view from about 1960 shows Greenville’s four corners. On the left is the Corner Restaurant, razed in the mid-1960s. The distinctive building uppermost is the carriage house of the Greenville Arms. The Pioneer building still anchors the southwest corner, and to its right since the Vanderbilt Theater (see November). The pond, with a neatly laid up but precipitously edged wall, faces the barely visible edge of the Mobil Station awning across the street.

A Pioneer Co-operative Fire Insurance Company office vignette is captured in this photo of about 1912. Shown, left to right, are: Clara Hartt, Orrin C. Stevens, Fanny Sanford, Edith Budd, James Stevens, and Lottie Wooster. This photo comes from a commemorative album on the 101st anniversary of the company in 1957. The insurance company had occupied the southwest corner of Rts. 81 and 32 since 1928, when the brick edifice was built, until the town recently bought the building for town offices.

The Corner Restaurant was razed in the early 1960s, part of the widening/upgrading of Route 81. Long a business fixture on Greenville’s southeast four corners, this building served as a restaurant, ice cream store, IGA store, shoemaker shop, and even as school room space. This building played a significant role in the 1935 Glenn murder case that was Greenville’s “crime of the century.”

July 12, 1924 finds Greenville’s southwest corner firmly anchored by a neatly manicured Glen Royal Hotel, owned and operated by Helen and Harold C. Woodruff. This corner features prominently in past calendar photos. Note the planks crossing the dirt road, flower boxes, the ice cream store in back, the dance hall beyond that, and the double-level roof of the Vanderbilt Theater (today’s Cumberland Farm site) on the far right. On the far left is the hill that rises behind South Street.

This 1960 aerial of Greenville shows the main outline of modern Greenville, with some obvious changes. Running horizontally across the lower photo is Route 32, from just north of Carelas’s Hill a half mile south of the four corners and extending, on the photo’s right, almost to the corner of Irving Road. Route 81 runs from top left until it meets Rt 32. The pattern of dots in the center is the trees of the orchard that marks the site of today’s GCS Middle and High Schools. To the right of the school property is that of the Vanderbilt farm, today the town park. Snaking across the top of the photo is the Basic Creek

A rare rowing across the Greenville Pond reflects the structures of West Street (today’s Rt 81). The Roe house (with the vines) was razed to make way for the National Bank of Coxsackie in the 1960s. Almost seamless behind it is Cunningham’s – a residence, funeral parlor, and, at its earliest, a store. The view beyond traces Rt 81’s westward path up and over the slight rise past today’s post office. (The trees in the inset hide almost all view of the house just beyond.) Also note the classic early century look of elm trees which were devastated by mid-century’s elm blight.