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.

A classic winter scene shows South Street, Greenville about 1905 as seen by Madison Stevens. Left is the Randall house; center is the Greenville Arms. Right, telephone pole brings new service to Greenville.

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.

Birdseye view of Greenville Four Corners from Stevens’s Hill

The Vanderbilt Theater, the cultural Center for Greenville, occupied the current Cumberland Farms site on Rt 81, Greenville. The 1825 Episcopal Church of East Greenville was moved and became the theater during the later 1800s. The theater, last used as a summer theater and movie house, was razed in 1982.

Rod Talmadge poses with his taxidermy in the Talmadge house, 200 yards north of the Ingalside farm barns on Ingalside Road. The taxidermy collection passed to the buyers at a 1960 auction upon Rod’s wife’s (Mary Hickok Talmadge) death; the house was razed soon thereafter.

The framing of a barn stands in mute testimony to the power of a barn bee. Although the site of this picture has not been identified (tentatively placed just north of the town line in the South Westerlo or Lambs Corners area), this type of activity was repeated many times from the beginning of Greenville’s history until the early twentieth century. These bees not only accomplished a needed task but they also served as important social events during the year. In addition to raising a barn, a bee might harvest a crop, press hay, pick apples, make rugs, store food, cut ice, make quilts, and accomplish any other social event during the year where many hands could make a big task go faster.

Built in 1889 by William Vanderbilt, this South Street building remained a private residence until 1952 when Pierce and Ruth Stevens opened the Greenville Arms to the public. Eliot and Tish Dalton, owners since 1989, have renovated the Victorian style inn to become a nationally recognized retreat, especially for summer-long series of art workshops. The diagonal line across the photo is a result of a cracked glass plate negative.

This scene from South Street, Greenville, epitomizes a sophisticated country atmosphere with the reading of the newspaper in the side-yard swinging chair set. About 1905, photographer M.P. Stevens used large glass plate negatives to record a few dozen scene of Greenville of his time. Tentatively identified across the street are the current homes in the area of the Ellis family and the Randall family. The man and woman remain unidentified.

Completed in 1857, the Christ Episcopal Church was consecrated on October 22 of that year. The stone for the foundation came from the George Calhoun farm (recently owned by Mary Stevens) west of Greenville, and the stone for the building came from the Truman L Sanford farm east of the village (the Turon farm on Rt. 26), according to a church document. Nationally known architect Richard Upjohn drew up the plans. The earliest activities of the Episcopal Church refer to a marriage in 1805. The first building was consecrated in 1827 in East Greenville on Route 26 before the present building was erected on its current site. The Christ Episcopal Church rests a couple hundred yards north of Greenville’s four corners.

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.

Middle class Greenville of about 1905 shows in this room, tentatively identified as the Stevens’ residence on South Street, today the location of Rossie Smith. This picture was developed from the glass plate negatives from the M. P. Stevens collection, several pictures of which have graced GLHG calendars over the past ten years.

Shelves of potions, powders, medications in their glass containers comprise this classic rural drugstore interior of about 1905. Featured in several past calendar pages, the drugstore anchored east Main Street. Past drugstore proprietors have included Avery, McCabe, Hallenbeck, Ales, and Quackenbush. For an exterior view, see the April page in this calendar

A birdseye view from Stevens Hill shows a turn of the century Greenville hamlet. In the right foreground lies the cemetery. At the left is visible the steeple of the Presbyterian Church, the chapel (the bottom showing through the trees; today’s Boy Scout site), and the distinctive double pitch of the Episcopal Church. In the background are the hills of West Greenville and South Westerlo. Stevens Hill is the first steep hill on Rt 26, the property of which is still owned by the Stevens family. This photo was developed from a glass plate negative taken by M. P. Stevens.