An almost-perfect summer day awaited the 40-50 who came to the August 2014 meeting—80 degrees, low humidity, mostly sunny; more days than usual like that seemed to have crept in this summer. 
          Signing in or attracting my attention were: Shirley & Orrin Stevens, Marie & Bob Shaw, Barbara & Phil Flach, Ron Golden, Phyllis Beechert, Stephanie Ingalls, Al Hulick, Peter O’Hara & John Garofalo, Johanna & Robert Titus, Christine Mickelsen, Candie & Rick Ruland, Bette Welter, Evelyn Jennings, Marilyn Snow, Beverly Myers, Lois Rockefeller, Mary Heisinger, Sue & Lew Knott, Rachel Ceasar, Rich Ceasar, Paula Malone, Sally Staunch, Audrey Matott, Walter Ingalls, and Don Teator, and a few more that may have escaped me.

If I missed you, let me know and I’ll make note next month. Meetings like this, combined with operating the projector and computer, are beyond my full ability to take accurate attendance.
          (Side note: The Daily Mail’s Audrey Matott attended the meeting and the GLHG was front page famous on Wednesday (August 13) in case you can find a copy. I bought an additional copy and will bring it to next meeting in case you wish to see it.)

The attraction of the evening was A History of Greenville through Photos: Part III: The Other Places, a meeting in collaboration with the Greenville Library programming. We did an overview of the town and of the Greenville hamlet two years ago, while Freehold and Norton Hill was the topic last year.
         After those two earlier shows, the germ of this year’s topic sprouted; I am pleased the show met most of my expectations. I had to work a bit, scouring some maps and traveling to the far corners of the Town to shoot a picture because post cards and pictures do not exist in my files. And, as usual, I had some good back-up from the floor this evening.
          I was waiting for someone to add another place name but no one did. However, there is still time, so keep thinking and looking.

So, Barbara opened the meeting, teased the audience that it was a Library meeting, and then quickly turned the floor over to me.
          I started with the most populated or well-known spots, and then traveled the more remote nooks of our town, and then ventured to places I had found only last month when I happened to espy a bolded name on the 1867 Beers map that I realized was meant to be a place name. And then I looked more closely and found several more.
          Of course, this all begs the questions as what corner or area deserves a place name, how formal does it have to be, what happens if it has more than one name, and more. The passage of time also can relegate places that everyone would have known a century or more ago to a quizzical look from people a couple generations later.
          I am duplicating the order of the names as I listed them. See how many you know.

Greenville Center – Gayhead – Surprise – Result – East Greenville – West Greenville – O’Hara Corners – Little Ireland – Newry – Place’s Corners – Sunny Hill – King Hill – Red Mill – Sanford’s Corners – Murder Bridge Hill – Carelas’s Hill – Budd’s Hill – Fish Hill – Carelas’s Lake – Lake Barbara – Brundage Hill – Plank Rd – Welling’s Corners – Horton’s Corners – Shaw’s Mill – Slater’s Corners – Cherry Grove – Old Athens Pike – Schoharie Turnpike – Coxsackie Turnpike – Brandy Hill – Brookside – Hickok Place – Hush Hush – Locust Valley Farm – Cherry Grove

We also realized that some places have informal names, known only to the few people near that corner or area. They either die out or, who knows, perhaps one or two may stick. (I call Brundage Hill, the short & steep hill a mile up Red Mill Rd from CR 67, Buelville, after the cluster of houses related to the influence of Ben & Terry Buel from the 1980s on. Probably not going to stick, eh?)

And then some of the places have more than one name, sometimes at the same time.

Most of the evening’s discussion centered on a handful of places, depending on who was remembering what.
          Newry got more attention in one night than it has for twenty years. Of course, it helped that Phil Flach, who lives in the center of Newry (yes, there is a center!), was available for his stories, especially with the photos of the Wallace Peck house and the historic-markererd Dr. Ely house. Stories of corn silage pollution, a car running into the house, and more was good for a chuckle and an education. Newry was also a common mail stage route when the mail traveled from the river up to Westerlo by stagecoach. Today, Newry is even smaller than Surprise.
          Dot Blenis would have doubled our time spent on Surprise but we managed to add a few stories. The two photos of the saw mill had many of us questioning where it would have been sited, and a few in the audience helped answer that. Yes, there is a waterway that could have powered a mill although we questioned how long the working season could have been.
          Carelas’s Hill, Budd’s Hill, and Fish Hill are all the same hill, just different eras. And in the background of two photos was Lake Barbara (Carelas’s Lake for you old-timers—meaning, older than 25!).
          O’Hara’s Corners got more attention this evening than the past ten years, mostly because Peter O’Hara was able to lend some information about the history of that three-pronged corner.
          Back to Surprise. The only name I did not have pictures for was Result. However, the playfully named Surprise-Result Road connects the two ends. Although the “center” of Result is in the Town of Coxsackie, many of its residents are in the Town of Greenville.
          Only a several hundred yards apart, East Greenville and Brandy Hill have a fabled past, much of it told in Ray Beecher’s Out to Greenville. I would urge you to read that chapter; it is told a whole bunch better than I have space here to relate.
          West Greenville is another of those place names that shows on all the old maps, and occasionally on a newer map. Located at the junction of SR 81, Red Mill Road, and Ingalside Road, it must have been a busy place 150 years ago. And a half-mile south on Red Mill Road is the eponymous Red Mill which is probably the most photographed building outside of the three big hamlets.

Then, as I was looking at the Beers 1867 map, there were several bold face names that indicate places that I have seen only on this map, recounted in the next paragraph. (I have copied part of this map for this newsletter.)
          Hickock Place is about where Ingalside was, including the house across the street just to the north (the Talmadge house, Hickok house, etc.); Cherry Grove is listed on Ingalside Rd, near the county line; Locust Valley is located where Baumann Brookside is today; and Brookside is found on Rt 26, just west of Scutt Rd, about where Wiltwyck Lake and Wiltwyck Cabins are. (And this last mention started a brief history of that area—a history I knew nothing of before this evening.
          Also on the 1867 map was Hush-Hush, a name still used today to indicated the Prevost Manor House which sets behind a scattering of trees fifty yards off the road behind the historic marker on SR 81 between Maple Avenue and the former Breezy Knoll.
          The photo of Shaw Mill, near the intersection of today’s Red Mill Road and East Red Mill Road drew comments about mills and names of roads and Noah Shaw.
          Beginning our evening was Greenville Center, the largest of the place names listed, and represented in the audience by Christine, Bob, and Marie. The photo of the Far Hills Nursing Home evoked several memories—memories we need to record before it is forgotten.

On it went, an enjoyable evening about these place names that happen with much less frequency than Greenville, Freehold, and Norton Hill—exactly the purpose of this evening.
          For those not there, if you have particular questions about any of the place names, feel free to contact me, or to talk to someone who was there. It will be a while before we field this many infrequently used names again.

The September 8 meeting should be good. A topic that a few of you have suggested in the past will finally happen—General Stores in the Greenville Area. Actually, we will focus on two—John I’s in Norton Hill and the Winn Store in Grapeville. Maureen Ver Planck and Marilyn Snow have enough material for the evening and I did not want to crowd the scene by trying to cover them all. Perhaps, we can get to some of the other ones in the future.

However, for a challenge and for that future meeting, help me identify all the other general stores you can think of. How about for starters: Stevens/Powell, in Norton Hill; Blenis, in Surprise; Townsend, in Greenville Center; Shaw, in Greenville Center; Winn/Bryant, in South Westerlo; Hall/Wood/Dudley, in Freehold (still operating); Labuda, in Grapeville; more?
          Lawyer’s in East Durham still operates, and there was another one further up the road.
          Oak Hill must have had a couple.
          And what about Greenville. There was the IGA where Von’s store was although some of you may question whether that was a real general store. What else in Greenville?

I have recently taken the text and pictures for the 2015 calendar to the Altamont Enterprise, and they will notify me when the proofs are ready—probably after Labor Day. And I have requested it be done by Columbus Day, in time for our October meeting. And I am smiling to myself, thinking you, and the community, will enjoy it.

Subscription notice: those of you who receive this by email, there is nothing to do but wait for the emails to come your way. No cost to you.
          For those who receive the paper copy, your end-of-subscription date is on the address label. If it ends before January 2015, you can renew by sending a check, or cash, for $10 for another year to Don Teator, 3979 Rt 67, Freehold, NY  12431. Even if it runs out before January 2015, I will keep sending a copy until the Annual Report in late winter, and we can even up then if you choose.

I am getting this newsletter a week earlier than usual, knowing that I will be away that week. So, if you have some general store stories, especially John I’s or Winn’s, bring them with you.

Take care,
- Don
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Shaw Mill Bridge - on East Red Mill Rd, crossing Basic Creek near Red Mill Rd
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part of 1867 Beers map showing West Greenville (Ingalside Rd running north,
with Cherry Grove, Hickok Place, Hush Hush, and Locust Valley [bottom of photo])