The Vedder Research Library

William and Pierce Stevens, moving snow as boys did in 1905. This picture was one of several dozen shot by Madison Stevens using the 5 x 7 glass negative format.

When the snowplows didn’t make it, the men of Freehold did. Shoveling through a draft in front of Elmer Story’s house, one quarter mile west on Main St., Rt 67, in the winter of 1917-1918 are, left or right: Oliver Hunt, Alex Garrison, Floyd Palmer, Merv Bennett, Calvin Lacy, ? (the boy peering by the shovel handle), Elmer Story, ?, Harmon Becker.

Dr. Charles P. McCabe (1856-1930) makes another house call in his model T Ford circa 1920. Dr. McCabe practiced in Greenville from the 1890s until the 1920s as a few residents can still testify from personal experience.

As the population boom continued through mid-century, the Town of Greenville attempted to maintain their own police force, first with a system of constable and then with the Town of Greenville police force. Formed in the late 1960’s, it was eliminated about 1982. Three member of this police force were Andy Macko, Lou Becker and Howard Brinkerhoff.

Local flavor and patriotism marked Pete Rinaldi’s contribution to Greenville’s Memorial Day parades with his pick-up truck float, “Let Us Never Forget”. Pete, a WWII Navy radar man, would construct his float each year in his backyard, attaching 122 crosses and eight Stars-of-David to the wooden platform. Starting in 1985, Pete drove this float in Greenville’s parades until his death in late 1995. Appearing in the 1996 parade, Pete Rinaldi’s float was donated to American Legion Post 291.

In 1928, when a cow could walk Main Street, Greenville, Thurston Vaughn (inset), Charles Abrams, and Robert Vaughn lead the Vaughn cow to pasture. The house in the background is today known as Evie Simpsons’s house. At the time of this picture, the Vaughns lived in the first house north of the creek that runs by the elementary school upper parking lot, east side of the road (today, Gordon Simpson’s house).

Armed with a vision of and a need for an expanded library, Greenville Memorial Library Board Chair Leona Flack (shown above) initiated a 1991 building drive that finally culminated in this 1996 addition. The original building was built in 1906, replacing the former Greenville Academy building (1816-1905). A previous addition had been built on the same side in the early 1920s, and moved in the 1930s to Norton Hill.

Settling just north of what would become the Town of Greenville line on North Road, Jacob Ingalls arrived in this area in 1793. Many of his descendants stayed in the area and helped shape the Greenville area history. A great-grandson of Jacob, Truman Ingalls (1864-1941), and his wife Carrie Spalding Ingalls pose with their nine children in 1907; (clockwise, starting with the tallest) Warren (m. Margaret Tremmel), Carrie (m. Edward Calvin Ingalls), Ransom (m. Ethel Abrams), Stanley (m. Eleanor Goff), Elgirtha (m. Scott Ellis), Leona (m. D.H. Rundell), Dorothy (m. William Gray), Ruth (m. Merritt Elliot) and Clarence (m. Alliene Beers, Irene Worth). The Ingalls were among the earliest teamsters and lumberers in the area, as well as anchoring the nearby communities in which they settled.

One of the longest continuous personal businesses in Greenville, located 100 yards north of Greenville’s four corners, is the barbershop of Joe Flach (left) and son Philip (Flip). They have operated their barbershop, built in 1963, from the site formerly of Wessel’s Garage, and before that a blacksmith and wheel shop. Celebrating his 50th year in business, Joe started cutting hair in February, 1948 in a shop attached to the Tydol-Veedol service station (currently the post office site on Route 81 west) which was owned by his father-in-law Phil Schwebler. Joe had apprenticed under Bill Neidlinger who ran a barbershop in what is now Attorney Dale Doerner’s office on Route 81 east. Flip, at age 16, apprenticed under his father and was licensed in 1968. Joe’s father Karl operated a farm on the Alcove Road, about one-half mile from the junction with Hillcrest Road.

William Quackenbush Jr and William Quackenbush III work behind the counter of the Greenville Pharmacy in 1973. Bill (father) and wife Dot came to Greenville from Plattsburgh, NY in 1949, buying the pharmacy from Gordon Bartholomew who had bought it in 1946 from the previous owner, Frank Ales. The Pharmacy, located on the south side of Main Street, most recently is the site for At the Crossroads. Bill and Dot brought to Greenville their first five children - Bill, Ed, Mike, Mary and Dan - and would then have five more while in Greenville - Judy, Joe, Mark, Bernadette, and Matt. Oldest son Bill graduated in 1966 from Albany College of Pharmacy (as did Mark in 1979) and returned to Greenville to work with his father in the spring of 1967. In 1977, the Pharmacy moved to Bryant’s Country Square (site of inset) and was sold to sons Bill and Mark in 1978, the year before their father died. Since then, the Greenville Pharmacy began Northeast Home Care (1983), bought the Windham Pharmacy (1985), became associated with ValueRite (about 1985), and opened the Greene Medial Arts Pharmacy in Catskill (1994). As a result of another death in the family due to cancer, the Quackenbushes stopped selling tobacco products in 1989, one of the first stores in eastern New York to do so. In the inset are Dot and sons Mark (left) and Bill.

In July, 1997, two enterprising women, Susan Hulick (left) and Judy Ferrer (right), believed that the Greenville area was ready for another community paper, and published the first issue in October. With an office originally in Norton Hill and currently on Rt. 32, a mile south of Greenville’s four corners, that new paper, the Greenville Press, has already become one of Greenville’s institutions.

Created in 1992 and officially opened in 1998, the 156 acre George V. Vanderbilt Park exists through the efforts of dozens of people. Especially instrumental in this early process were, left to right, Denise Mulligan, Debbie Magee and Ken Elsbree, through grant writing, planning, and volunteering of time.

Maggie Evans Cathcart (left) poses with her brother’s (James Evans) stagecoach. The coach carried mail and passengers to Coxsackie, Greenville and Medusa. A November 10, 1881 edition of a local paper attests that Evans was employed from Coxsackie when the previous carrier refused to stop in Greenville. James’s son George survived a publicized 1891 accident when he was about 14 years old, falling on and clinging to the coach’s whiffletree. Many years later, the coach would be used in movies.

A family with a sense of humor, the Griffins pose among the ladder rungs in front of their house on Red Mill Road, about 200 yards north of the Red Mill. From left to right, father Bert Griffin holds daughter Ruth (m. Harry Eisert) on his lap, Margaret (m. Otto Fuegmann), Louis (m. Margaret Smith), Max (m. Edna Heinick), Evans (m. Esther Spaulding), Elmira (m. Carroll Booth), Burdette (m. Evangeline Snyder), Estella (m. Charles Leslie Abrams), Elizabeth (m. Alfred Burnett), and mother Rhue Evans Griffin. The Griffin family in Greenville dates back three more generations before Bert – his father Bloomer, grandfather Smith, and great-grandfather Marcus.

Accommodating guests and travelers along the Schoharie Turnpike once again, the renovated Freehold Country Inn serves as a tribute to the efforts of Ben Buel. He began renovation in October 1998, and the building open for business in March 1999 as a fine dining restaurant. The carriage house (left) was renovated for gatherings (banquets, weddings, private parties, etc.) of up to 150 guests. Shown are owners Ben & Terry Buell, Max Suhner, and in the inset, Salah Alygad.

Superintendent of Highways Stanley Ingalls stands proudly with the technology of the mid-1930s. To his right is fellow highway worker Ray Hunt.

The family of James and Elizabeth (Purinton) Evans lived on Ingalside Road, approximately one-third mile from the Rt. 81 intersection. In the back row are sons George and Lewis, daughter Rhue (later married Burdette Griffin, Sr.), and son Arthur and his wife Flora (Sanford). In the front are Elizabeth and James Evans’ daughter Elizabeth (sitting; later married Grover Brown), and James’s sister Maggie (Evans) Cathcart who lived across the street in the house today owned by Joan Rice. The house, which stood on the west side of the road, burned on February 19, 1913, leaving only the stone foundation as evidence.

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

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.

Gloria Darrah, P. A., has served more than twenty years in Greenville’s history of medical care. After 14 years in East Berne, Gloria came to Greenville in 1984 with the goal of not only providing quality primary care but also of bringing an array of services under one roof. One of New York’s first Physician Assistants to own her own practice, she partnered, first, with Dr. Smith, and, later, with Dr. Morgenstern.

One of the GLHG’ S community recognitions (see also July), George Story’s business life has centered on vegetable farming and the nursery trade. The son of Clinton and Gladys Story, and grandson of Ralph Story, George was born in Freehold. As a teenager, George sold vegetables to local businesses. He graduated from Cornell, operated a roadside vegetable stand, and developed the business we know today as Story’s Nursery. However, it is George’s service to the community that the GL HG recognizes. He was a school board member for nineteen years, is a Mason, and has served as a member of a variety of business and advisory committees. Most noticeably, George has volunteered his time, efforts and goods for community fundraising efforts.

Wayne Nelsen (project director and Freehold Country Store proprietor) and Bunny and Phil Savino (project coordinators and Freehold residents) spearheaded the Freehold Beautification Project that reshaped Main Street ambience with placement of sidewalks, lights, benches, trees and a clock tower. Leading to this, a county project replaced an aging bridge but had also cut down the street’s largest trees, leading to protests, petitions, and grants from the town, county and state.

One of the two GLHG’s community recognitions (see also April), Gary, Gail and Wayne Nicholsen have carried on the tradition of the parents (Arnold and Mae) and grandparents (Peter and Gurine). The first two generations have been recognized in previous calendars – September 1995 and Cover 2002. Sunny Hill Resort, on Sunny Hill Road, has evolved into one of the area’s finest resorts, drawing thousands of tourists into the area each year. However, it is the selfless commitment to community service the GLHG recognizes. Each has contributed his and her time and energy to community projects, perhaps with Gary the most recognizable (GCS School Board). Still, it is their combined generosity that has not only allowed for the community use of their grounds and buildings for area events but also has witnessed their coordination and unstinting participation in the many fundraising efforts of our town.

The King family and their descendants farmed the King Hill area from the 1790s until the 1990s. This family pose shows (back) Obadiah and Ella King with Ella’s mother, “Grandma” Cowell, on their left. In front sit Obadiah and Ella’s daughter and son-in-law, Bertha and Clair Weeks, and grandson Clinton Weeks.

This recently married couple, Merritt Elliott (1898-1989, son of Edith Merritt and Peter Elliott) and Ruth Ingalls (1900-1996, daughter of Carrie Spalding and Truman Ingalls) enjoy a carriage ride near the Ingalls homestead on Old Plan Road in Norton Hill (near junction with Johnnycake Lane).

These Norton Hill and Greenville men, dressed in their fine Sunday clothes, pause from their target shooting to pose for this late 1920s photo at an undetermined site. They are tentatively identified as: back: Harry Adriance, Harry Yeomans, Sr., Harold Woodruff, Erwin Yeomans; front: Ford Rundell, Ken Hallock, Wilbur Cornell, Wilbur Baumann.

Richard Edwin Taylor (left; 1829-1909) kept a diary from 1858-1902. Twenty-nine years old when he started recording, Taylor wrote every day, capturing a plethora of details about daily life, family events, and community connections. He married Louisa Utter (1831-1916) in 1857. Although we have no photo of her, Louisa’s father, Bani Utter (b. 1795 at Oak Hill, died 1869; fifth child of James Utter who was one of Oak Hill’s first settlers), is shown on the right. The details of the diary were brought to life from Harriett’s longhand transcription and subsequent annual summaries that were presented to Greenville Local History Group meetings. Richard and Louisa’s children included Howard (mar. Augusta Sammons, Elizabeth Schaefer, six ch.); Addie (mar. Bronk Van Slyke, 2 ch.); Isabel (mar. George Allen, 5 ch); Dwight (unmarried); Cora Mae (infant); and Mary (mar. Henry Hedges, 3 ch).

Perhaps, during a break between duties, these waitresses – Margie Smith (m. Parks), Doris Lamb (m. Ormsbee), “Sis” Abrams (m. Rasmussen), and “Skip” Covenhoven (m. Johannesen) – pose in their uniforms while working at Balsam Shade in the summer of 1944. Often starting by 6 A.M., waitresses not only served three meals to the summer guests but also cleaned bathrooms and boarders’ rooms, swept sidewalks, washed windows, scraped & washed & dried dishes and silverware, and did the host of small jobs that kept them occupied until after supper was served, usually until 8 p.m.