Living in 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. Each of us has a story to tell. Submit a story about your group or a local history story or memory of growing up in the Town of Greece. Please email your story with photos as a zip file to: greecehistoricalsociety@yahoo.com and in the subject line put Share My Story of Local History or Memories Of Greece N.Y. and the title of your story along with a photo and brief bio so when we publish your story in the newsletter and on the web just like the stories below. Your story should be no more than 500 words. Don’t worry if you’re not an English scholar — we will edit as needed for continuity, grammar, punctuation, etc.

Ontario Beach Park – a series of articles written by Dick Halsey (also contains access to other historical content)

Our Interviews and Older Publications prior to the ones published in the Corinthian Newsletter

Some of the stories of living in Greece may bridge the years that the story is based on some may bridge all years and some may only bridge 2 or 3 of the 50 years spans per each 50-year span starting with 1800-1850, 1900-1950, 1950-2000, and 2000-Present.

Explore Living In Greece, NY

Living in Greece Stories (79)Guest Stories (15)1800-1850 (12)1850-1900 (25)1900-1950 (54)1950-2000 (32)2000 – Present (9)From The Historian’s Files (24)
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A Vineyard in Greece

The Fetzner family, German immigrants to Greece, originally established their reputation through making and repairing transport vehicles. Later, J.P. Fetzner ventured into the liquor business, founding several successful companies including the Rochester Liquor & Distilling Company and the Lake Ontario Wine Company. However, following J.P.’s death in 1909, his businesses quickly collapsed, revealing significant financial mismanagement…

Judson S. Kenyon

An ashtray artifact at the Greece Museum led to the discovery of Judson S. Kenyon, a notable personality from Greece, New York. Born in 1872, Kenyon was highly active in local politics and the Greece Baptist Church, earning a dedicated ashtray from the Greece Republican Party in 1948. He passed away in 1963…

Eighty Years Later- Camp Sawyer’s Well

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 and early 1940s. In the…

They Gave Their Talent for the Benefit of the Community

Deep in the back of a rather large yard at Paddy Hill, hidden among the weeds and overgrown brush, is what appears to be the foundation of an old structure. Adolescents finding this structure could easily imagine themselves as an explorer discovering the ruins of an ancient civilization. A less imaginative adult might see the…

Longtime Agricultural Farmland Transitions

Back in early Greece history much of the farmland around Long Pond Road north of Maiden Lane was owned by the Britton Family. Opposite this land down at 1048 Long Pond Road stood a stone structure, the first location of the Greece school where the Greece Methodist Church organized in 1841, and now is around…

Happy Birthday Monroe County

On February 23, 2021, we celebrated the Bicentennial of the founding of Monroe County. Named for President James Monroe, the county was carved out of land taken from both Ontario and Genesee Counties; it became a new county on February 23, 1821, by decree of the New York State Legislature. After the Revolutionary War, a…

The Stories That Find You – Camp Sawyer’s The Well

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 Press article about Camp Sawyer…