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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Christmas Greetings Cards 1875-1900

December 1, 2017 |
Greeting cards for the Christmas season were very slow to gather popularity in the United States prior to the Civil War ( 1861-1865). The first commercial Christmas card was introduced for the season of 1843 in London, England. It wasn't a success for several reasons. In the early 1870s, a...
Categories: 1850-1900 From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Boston Christmas Christmas Eve Civil War England Facebook Greeting Cards Holidays Instagram Linkedin London Mass Pinterest Saint Nicholas Santa Snapchat Tumblr Twitter Whatsapp YouTube
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A Tale of Two General Stores: “From Apples to Zithers”

October 1, 2017 |
Our History... by Alan Mueller Small general stores (as they were often called) were in the Charlotte area from the earliest days. In the 1850s general merchandise businesses were established along Ridge Road West. Henry C. Phelps built his store on North Greece Road in about 1870. The area was...
Categories: 1850-1900 From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories Uncategorized
Tags: General Stores Gilbert (Burt) J Wagg's H.C. Phelps Kodak Park Lake Ave Lake Avenue North Greece Pullman Ave Wagg's General Store
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Greece memories: Farmer’s diary shows 1800’s life in the Island Cottage area

September 1, 2017 |
The William Connelly family lived for many years in the Island Cottage and Janes Road area. Connolly was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland in March 1818. At the age of eleven, he immigrated to the United States with his parents. Early on, they set­tled in the Greece area. Connelly...
Categories: 1800-1850 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Buck Pond Charlotte Civil Warr Ellen Burns Fort Sumter Island Cottage Road Janes Janes Road Jimmy Goodwin Lewis Mother of Sorrows Mr. Allen Mullen's Cooper Shop Nancy Beaty Nancy Connelly President Lincoln Railroard Valentine's Day William Connelly
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American soldiers with a French Machine Gun

“Calling Home” in The Great War, World War One

May 1, 2017 |
Incumbent President, Woodrow Wilson, barely won a second term over the Republican candidate, a former Governor of New York State, and an associate Supreme Court Judge, Charles Evan Hughes. Wilson's propaganda re-election promise had been, "He kept us out of war". President Wilson was born and raised in Virginia and...
Categories: 1900-1950 From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1917-1919 A.E.F. Charles Evan Hughes Cog - 38 inf Congress Flags French French Machine Gun Harry G. Penny Postcards U.S. War Woodrow Wilson World War I
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The Cupola That Almost Got Away!

March 1, 2017 |
Our story begins more than sixteen years ago, at 2505 West Ridge Road near Long Pond Rd. A cupola on the ninety-year-old Greece Town Hall was about to be taken down with the rest of the abandoned building. The new Town Hall on Long Pond Road was dedicated with much...
Categories: 1900-1950 1950-2000 2000 - Present Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1997 1999 2001 2505 West Ridge Road Cupola Project Chairman Fred Meredith Greece D.P.W. Larry Zarnsdorf Long Pond Road Lorraine Beane Richard LaCroix Supervisor John Auberger Thomas Schommer Walter Berl
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Outdoor Ice Skating

February 1, 2017 |
The opening of the outdoor skating rink on the Greece Town Campus should bring back memories of the "good old days" to many of us who have lived in the area for a half century or more. Back then there were many opportunities for outdoor ice skating, including public schools,...
Categories: 1900-1950 1950-2000 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Barnard School Britton Rd Britton Road School Carter Park Cooks Hardware Democrat & Chronicle DPW Fleming Creek Forgham Road Greece Department of Public Works Greece Town Campus Maplewood Park pond Milton Carter Milton H. Carter Milton H. Carter Park Ontario Beach Park
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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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The Post Card Craze Helped Popularize Halloween and Thanksgiving

November 1, 2016 |
The postcard craze of the early 1900s embraced all the holidays. Two of the holidays, excluding Christmas and New Year's, were the next largest, Halloween and Thanksgiving. For one cent, a colorful, often embossed card, the best printed in England or Germany, could be sent to any state. The average...
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Christmas England Frankfort Temple Germany Halloween LYRIC CLUB Masquerade New Year's Thanksgiving Thanksgiving night World War I
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“From tractors to tracts!” – From The Historian’s Desk

October 1, 2016 |
It is not quite a century since rural Greece slowly and sometimes not so slowly started to turn from an almost com­pletely agricultural community to street after street of home developments. After World War II the pace quickened so fast that the DPW couldn't keep up with all the new...
Categories: 1800-1850 1850-1900 1900-1950 From The Historian's Files Pioneer Families
Tags: DeConinck Kirk Road Latta Road Mitchell Pioneer Families Preston World War II Yarker
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Music in the air for over 130 Summers at Ontario Beach Park

August 1, 2016 |
This 2016 summer season of Wegman's Concerts by the Shore has concertgoers hearing such varied groups as The Dady Brothers Grand Band, The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, The Greece Jazz Band, and the Skycoasters, with more to come. Looking back through newspaper files, postcards, and photos of the last century and...
Categories: 1900-1950 Charlotte From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1870s 1900s 1910 1919 1920s 1924 1925 54th Regiment Bands Bartholomay Cottage Hotel and Pavil­ion Columbia Records Dossenbachs Edison Company Edison Records Edna White Gilmore Band Herman Japan Day John Cummings Lapham's "Red Husser" Band Link Ontario Beach Patrick Gilmore Rochester Park Band Skycoasters Spencer House The Dady Brothers Grand Band The Greece Jazz Band The Lapham The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Theodore Theodore and Herman Thomas Edison
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Marketing to Farmers From the 1850s to the 1900s

March 1, 2016 |
Cover of the Genesee Farmer Hiram Sibley & Co. Seed Box, Used in the C.W. Barnes Store, 1882-1888, Located in the General Store at Greenfield Village, in Dearborn, Michigan Prior to the Civil War (1861-65) the farmers in Greece got the latest information concerning all aspects of farming from fellow...
Categories: 1850-1900 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Bavaria C.W. Barnes Store Chicago Chromolithograph Civil War Colored lithography Cracker's Buffalo Phosphate Dearborn Genesee Farmer Germany Greece Grange Greenfield Village H. C. Phelps Hiram Sibley Hiram Sibley & Co. Seed Box Karle Lithographic Co. Keystone Mensing-Stecher Co. Michigan Monroe County Horticultural Society Montgomery Ward Moore's Rural New Yorker Sears-Roebuck The Patrons of Husbandry United States W.H. Rowerdink Co
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The Dance years at the Elmheart – Manitou Dance Pavilion – From The Historians Desk

January 1, 2016 |
The Elmheart Hotel was built about the same time as the Manitou Beach Trolley line was constructed, circa 1890. George Weidman Sr. and his brother-in-law, Michael O'Loughlin ran a saloon on State Street in the city and decided to invest in property on Lake Ontario. They purchased the Elmheart Hotel...
Categories: 1900-1950 From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories
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Manitou Beach Hotel – “From the Historian’s Files”

May 5, 2015 |
By far the largest and the most elegant of all the late 19th and early 20th century hotels along Lake Ontario in Greece was the Odenbach Manitou Beach Hotel. It was located at the far western end of the Manitou Beach Trolley. Built in 1888 by the Matthew and Servis...
Categories: 1850-1900 Corinthian From The Historian's Files Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Braddock Bay Charles P. Odenbach Charlotte Charlotte Beach Damon's Orchestra Fred J. Odenbach Fred Odenbach Frederick S. Odenbach John H Odenbach Manitou Beach Hotel Manitou Road Manitou Trolley Marie Villone Poinan Matthew P Odenbach Olcott Beach Sax Smith Tommy Tucker Vincent Lopez World War II
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“Keeping Greece roads clear in the 20th century”

January 1, 2015 |
Winter snows prior to the early 1900s weren't a problem for the Greece highway dept. There was no highway department, as such, and they had no snow-moving equipment. There might have been a few farmers who contracted with their team of horses to pull fairly large rollers to pack down...
Categories: 1900-1950 1950-2000 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: 1903 1919 1935 Canada Emmett Cooper Greece Department of Public Works Greece Highway Department HoJack Jenkins Corner New York North Greece Rd. Rochester
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Officer William M Linder

NOT THE FIRST AIR TRAFFIC OFFICER!

November 3, 2014 |
Jules Verne was a French author who pioneered the science-fiction genre. In the early part of the last century, Officer William M. Lindner, one of the first traffic patrolman with the Rochester Police Bureau, had an idea for an aerial traffic officer. He suggested a Zeppelin-type balloon with a wide...
Categories: 1900-1950 Living in Greece Stories
Tags: A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) A.H. Nichols Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) Captain Stein City of Rochester Cpt. Jack Dallas Dr William Green Eugene Ely first traffic patrolman Greater Rochester International Airport Jules Verne Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Missouri Officer Bill Lindner Rochester Police Bureau St. Louis Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) William M. Lindner Zeppelin-type balloon
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Homer J. Buckman – Sold Milk, Cream, and Lollipops!!!

November 1, 2014 |
Explore the story of Homer J Buckman. It might be a surprise to learn that a man that founded one of the first dairies in Greece also sold "suckers" in his very modest store, attached to his dairy barn.
Categories: 1900-1950 Ada Ridge Corinthian From The Historian's Files Hamlets of Greece Living in Greece Stories
Tags: Buckman's Buckman's Dairy and Bakery dairy Homer J. Buckman Lollipops Ralph DeStephano Sr.
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