Living in Greece Stories

Stories and recollections from the people, places, and publications that document life in the Town of Greece.

These articles offer perspectives on what it was like to live in the Town of Greece in the past. Many are from the archives or newsletters of the Greece Historical Society. If you would be interested in learning more about the Town of Greece’s history, please feel free to contact us at (585) 225-7221.

(These stories are the property of the Greece Historical Society, which retains all right thereto. The contributors to these stories provide them for non-commercial, personal, educational, and/or research use only. Prior written permission from the Greece Historical Society and the individual authors must be obtained for any other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly publications, or any reproductions or redistribution of any kind.)

Share Your Stories and Memories

We love to read stories and memories by you or your organization. Submit a local history story or memory of growing up in the Town of Greece by emailing a zip file with your story and photos to greecehistoricalsociety@yahoo.com. Use the subject line: Share My Story of Local History or Memories Of Greece N.Y. plus your story title. Include a brief bio and one photo for publication.

Your story should be no more than 500 words. We can edit for continuity, grammar, and punctuation. Stories may cover one span or multiple spans: 1800-1850, 1900-1950, 1950-2000, and 2000-Present.

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Clay tile lined well and pump base.

Eighty Years Later- Camp Sawyer’s Well

September 1, 2023 |
In the February Corinthian, I wrote a short story, "The Stories That Find You - Camp Sawyer's The Well", about a well and its pump that Boy Scout Troop 14 (from a 2018 article called A Civic Club's Legacy,) from Barnard School used at Camp Sawyer in the late 1930s...
Categories: 1900-1950 1950-2000 2000 - Present Corinthian Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1930s 1937 1943 1970 2018 Boy Scout Troop 14 Camp Sawyer Empire Clay Product Gilbert Holtz red sandstone Sawyer Park
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The Stories That Find You – Camp Sawyer’s The Well

February 1, 2023 |
Every historian knows that while researching a specific subject, it is not unusual to stumble on a completely unrelated subject that sparks your interest. One day, not that long ago, while looking for an obscure fact for a story I was helping someone with, I stumbled on a 1937 Greece...
Categories: 1900-1950 Corinthian Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1930s 1937 1943 1970 2018 Boy Scout Troop 14 Camp Sawyer Empire Clay Product Gilbert Holtz red sandstone Sawyer Park
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Greece Demanded Decency- No Topless Bathing!

October 1, 2021 |
"Your Bathing Suit Must be Right Kind in Greece or You'll Visit the Judge" This was a headline in an August 1934 issue of the Greece Press newspaper. Of course, it was about modesty, but you may not have guessed it was directed towards men. It seems in the early...
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1930s 1933 1934 1937 Chief Carter City of Rochester Public Safety Commissioner Democrat & Chronicle Greece Town Law Milton Carter Milton H. Carter The Greece Press Walter Cox West Coast
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Truck Farming on Stone Road – The Thomas Farm

December 1, 2016 |
Seventeen-year-old WIi­liam J. Thomas immi­grated to Greece from Cheddar, Somerset County, England, in 1882. The following year, he purchased 11 acres of farmland on Stone Road, not far west of the intersection of Eddy Road (now Mt. Read. Boulevard). At that time, the average size of a Greece farm was...
Categories: 1850-1900 1900-1950 1950-2000 From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories Uncategorized
Tags: 1882 1930s 1938 1950s 1960s 1963 19th Century 2½-story farmhouse beets car­rots Cheddar coal-fired boiler Eddy Road England horse-drawn wagon Mount Read Blvd non-growing season parsnips root vegetables Somerset County Stone Road turnips William J. Thomas
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Ice Harvesting in the Long Ago – From the Historian’s Desk

January 1, 2013 |
When some local farmers saw the thermometer dipping colder and colder below freezing for a few days they knew that it would be time to get the ice harvesting equipment ready for use on the ponds and a few temporarily dammed creeks in Greece. Long Pond and Cranberry Pond were...
Categories: 1850-1900 From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 100lbs 1910 1920s 1930s 25lbs 300lbs 400lbs 50lbs Buck Pond Cranberry Pond electric ice box Electric Refrigerator GE General Electric HoJack Ice Ice Box Ice breaking-off bar Ice Harvesting Ice Hooks ice house Ice Multi-Toothed Plow Ice Planner Ice Poles Hooks Ice Saw Ice Scorer Ice Scraper Ice Swing Guide ice-making machines Kathie Firkins Long Pond Pond Manitou Beach Manitou Beach Hotel Manitou Road mid-1920s Mrs. Happy Housewife's Skinner Skinner Family Sleds Sleighs Walt Goulding
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Shopping Long Ago in Greece from the 1900s-1940s

March 1, 2012 |
Shopping in Earlier Times (1900s-1940s) In the early 1900s, going to the general store such as H.C. Phelps General Store and Anderson's Store (just east of Mitchell Rd. on Ridge Rd.) would mean you could buy not only staple goods, such as flour, sugar, and canned goods but also kerosene,...
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 7-Eleven A & P Anderson Grocery Cooper's Deli-Grocery Cooper's Deli-Grocery and Service Station H.C. Phelps General Store Hart's grocery McBride's Norman Cooper Red and White Reichenberger's Meat Market Ridge Road Food Store Wagg's General Store Wind Mill Grocery and Gas Station
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