The North Greece area is located at the intersection of North Greece Road and Latta Road the streets that are included in this area are the east side of Manitou Road, The North side of English Road from North Greece Road to the intersection of English and North Ave if Pickering and Flynn Road Connected that would be the edge of the east side of the district up to the HoJack Line on Flynn Road, it then follows the Hojack line but it drops south of G. W. Northrup’s Property on North Greece Road, then down the back sides of the properties that sit on the west side of North Greece Road as soon it comes up to Latta and head west back to Manitou Road.

Latta Road is one of the Oldest Routes in the county but Latta only runs from Manitou Road to Lake Ave. But as for State Route 18 otherwise known as NY 18 begins at a junction with NY 104 south of a complex grade-separated interchange that includes NY 18F, NY 104, and the Niagara Scenic Parkway on the eastern edge of the village of Lewiston. to NY 104 in Lewiston then it zig-zags thru Orleans County until it passed thru Hilton and Parma then it turns on Manitou Road then on to Latta road and passes right thru the Hamlet of North Greece it then intersects NY 390. After a small distance east of NY 390, NY 18 passes Greece Arcadia High School as well as the newly built Greece Central School District Transportation and Support Services facility, Paddy Hill School, Mother of Sorrows, and intersects Mount Read Boulevard at the Paddy Hill Hamlet before intersecting Dewey Avenue a half-mile to the east. NY 18 turns south onto Dewey Avenue; however, state maintenance continues to follow Latta Road east to where it crosses into the Rochester city limits at Charlotte. This section of Latta Road is designated as NY 941A, an unsigned reference route. NY 18, meanwhile, becomes maintained by Monroe County as part of CR 132, an unsigned designation that follows Dewey Avenue north to its end at the Lake Ontario shoreline. The route continues south on Dewey Avenue to the Rochester city line, where CR 132 ends, and maintenance of the route shifts to the city of Rochester. NY 18 ends about 1 mile (1.6 km) later at a junction with NY 104 in an industrialized area known as Eastman Business Park.

Not surprisingly a hamlet sprang up at the crossroads of Latta and North Greece Roads. Although not denoted on a map, the hamlet was often called Jenkins’ Corners. We don’t know for sure why it was called this; there was a local farmer, William Jenkins, who may have given his name to the community, or perhaps it was named after an itinerant preacher, the first Methodist circuit rider to the area, the Reverend Amos Jenks. The natives of North Greece would sometimes say that they lived “down at the Jenks.”

William Schmitt, a Buick dealer, formed the North Greece Fire District. A Pierce-Arrow truck was purchased for $6,700, the first motorized fire truck in the Town of Greece. In June of 1922, the Blacksmith Shop once owned by Lewis Combs at the corner of North Greece and Latta Roads became the first firehouse, and William Schmitt, the first chief. During the ’20s the Department responded to many fires and traveled out of the District to assist surrounding Fire Departments.

In 1935, Chief William Schmitt declared 1922 Pierce-Arrow unsafe; two 1936 American-La France pumpers were purchased. The Fire Department had grown to 55 members.

On July 27, 1958, the new house at Latta Road and Mt. Read Blvd. was dedicated. In September of 1958, two new Seagrave pumpers were placed into service at the new firehouse.

On September 15, 1963, the construction of a new communication center and three-bay addition was dedicated at the station at North Greece and Latta Roads. This building replaced the Lewis Comb’s carriage and wagon manufactory with a more state-of-the-art building for fire departments in the 1960s.

More on the history of the North Greece Fire Department up to 1982 can be found in the book Milestones Along The Way 1922 to 1982, written by Eugene Preston and John Stageman. Just this June the North Greece Fire Department Celebrated its Centennial years of service to the North Greece Community

We at the Greece Historical Society say thank you for your service to the folks who live within the North Greece Fire Department District and that the department can grow and evolve its firefighting efforts with new technology and equipment to battle fires better, as well as better building techniques that different engineering and building codes change because of fires, accidents, water rescues and some of the different natural disaster that is occurring now due to climate change.

Celebrate NGFD 100 in Snapshot 36

Lewis Combs and Hiram Bice went in together on a butter business together.

“As their business notice said, they manufactured a butter-churn that was “acknowledged as the best churn in the United States.” 

The churn had a horizontal shaft that extended the length of a rectangular box on its legs.

A series of radial beaters was attached to the shaft. According to his patent filed in 1865, the inventor, J. F. Sanborn of Hardwick, Vermont, said that he wanted to “contrive a churn that would be efficient for producing butter from cream, and then serve as a butter worker for washing and mixing salt with the butter…” Individuals such as Lewis Combs and Hiram Bice used the design to make these churns which could produce butter in eight to fifteen minutes, half the time or less of a vertical hand churn, and much easier on the arms.

North Greece had a fruit drying house. Drying was a major method for preserving fruit, especially apples, to export to Europe.  LeFrois’ was used into the first decades of the twentieth century until supplanted by cold storage and canning factories.

Perhaps reflecting the hopes of parents and students, the North Greece school was located on College Avenue. It was also called the “gooseneck” road by local residents because of the bend in the road. 

This is the old brick school.

In 1927 the school had swings, slides, and teeters outside. The pupils in the upper grades played baseball in the back of the school on the baseball field. The school had two rooms, with four grades in each room. The school was heated with a coal furnace. They had a bathroom for boys and girls. This year they had regular electric light.

In 1949, the North Greece school district joined the Hilton Central School system.

The North Greece post office moved around from H. C. Phelps on the Southwest corner of Latta and North Greece Roads to the hotel on the Southeast Corner then it moved behind what was Lewis Combs’s carriage and wagon manufactory. Then at some point in the 1950s or 1960s, it moved to a brick building at 640 N Greece Rd, North Greece, NY 14515 which is south of where the DeMay Hotel stood at the corner of Latta and North Greece Road.