Education in Union Village

In the early 1830s, a Union College graduate named James Irvine Lourie came to Union Village (the present village of Greenwich) to start a private school. The venture proved a success, & in 1836 the Union Village Academy was formed with Lourie as principal.

James Lourie grew up in Jackson, & attended the Cambridge academy. In 1840, he resigned as principal & began practicing law with the Honorable Judge Charles F. Ingalls here in the village. Also in 1840 he married Mary Harriet Robinson. In 1854 he was elected to the NY State Assembly & became an ardent supporter of the Temperance Movement. In 1868 he was elected county surrogate judge. Judge Lourie died July 13, 1888.

The 1st building of the Union Village Academy stood where the Presbyterian parsonage stands. In 1849 the academy built the large brick building at 6 Academy Street.^ In 1869, the academy became part of the free public school system in Greenwich. By 1907, the building was condemned & sold to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge (IOOF). A new high school building was constructed on Gray Ave. The story goes that the Gray Ave site was decided by a vote of 277 to 276. The loosing site was on Bleeker St.* The  new high school building burnt in 1926 & had to be reconstructed.

Union Village Academy after it was sold to the IOOF

In 1850 Union Village Academy had 135 students. By 1937 the Greenwich School District had 756 students. Current enrollment is 1153 students.

Noteworthy students during the early years of the academy...
Daniel Anthony (brother of Susan B.)- governor of Kansas
Reverend James A. "Ticonderoga" Tefft- missionary to the West Coast of Africa
Chester Alan Arthur- 21st President of the US


^ Now the current home of the Village of Greenwich offices, the Greater-Greenwich Chaber of Commerce, the  Greenwich Youth Center, & the fire department. The addition to the building is now condemned & the fire department is search for a safer location.

* Much of the above information can be found in History of Secondary Education in Washington County by Roscoe L. Williams. Originally produced as a Master's thesis in 1937, it was published in 1991 by the Fort Edward Historical Association & is available at their gift shop.

Fascination with commemorative plates

I'm not sure why I am fascinated with commemorative plates. You know the ones I mean. Your grandmother may have had a few displayed on the wall in one of those metal, spring things... Or maybe they were in the back of the china closet. My grandmother had a few that I have inherited. Some I may not keep because I don't really have a connection to them, but others will be bound for display.

The Village of Greenwich Sesquicentennial committee decided to have a commemorative plate made for the 1959 event. It was produced by Kettlesprings Kilns in Alliance, OH. Kettlesprings Kilns began in 1950 to create a plate for Alliance's bicentennial, & grew from there. They still produce commemorative items like plates, mugs, tiles & bells (http://home.earthlink.net/~kettlesprings/products.html).

Greenwich Sesquicentennial plate 1959

Our plate is green, of course, with the sesquicentennial logo in the center. Around the outside are various buildings in the town. Notice the tiny witches between each building.

• White Swan Hotel (1851)
• Upper Dam (1860)
• Stevens & Thompson Mill
• Mowry-Blandy House
• Dorr Park & Van Ness House
• Greenwich Central School (1927)



Typical toile (in my favorite- red)

• temporary home of Susan B. Anthony*

You might think that I like these plates simply because of my interest in local history, but I think it's more than that. There is the sentimentality associated with my grandmother, but there is also the design element. I love toile^, a French fabric, usually linen or canvas with pastoral scenes printed on using one color. My favorite is red, but more often found in blue or black. These plates remind me of toile.

Well, I guess I do know why these plates fascinate me after all!


* I'm assuming this is the house the Anthony's moved to after the Panic of 1837, when they lost their home in Battenville.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toile or http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toile

Happy Earth Day STOP!

Did you know that Greenwich High School has a student organization specifically devoted to recycling? I did not. This is their 40th anniversary!

According to an article on the school website Student To Oppose Pollution (STOP) was started in April 1972 by Linda Austin. "The club began as a monthly recycling campaign which collected 11 tons of paper, nine and one-half barrels of flattened cans and 23 barrels of crushed class in its’ first month of operation.  Linda continued as advisor of S.T.O.P. until her retirement in 2001."*

The first Earth Day was celebrated on March 21, 1970 in San Francisco & a few other cities. It wasn't until 1990 when it became a global phenomenon under the direction of Denis Hayes & the Earth Day Network http://www.earthday.org/.

Ron Cobb's 1969 Ecology Symbol^

Happy Earth Day Anniversary to the students and educators who have made S.T.O.P. an important part of the Greenwich CSD & the entire Greenwich community. Celebrate by bringing your recyclables to Greenwich High School on Saturday, April 21, 2012. For more info see the link below... or check out our Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/TownOfGreenwichNy

For information on Roadside Clean-up this weekend in Greenwich, Easton & Argyle, pick up a copy of today's Greenwich Journal and Salem Press.


* http://www.greenwichcsd.org/hswebsite/news.html accessed 4/19/2012
^ This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Attribution: WiscMel at en.wikipedia http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ecology_symbol.png accessed 4/19/2012

What I see from my window... the library!

Union Village Academy housed the first "public" library in Greenwich. Well, around 1833, for a small fee the public could use the school's library. By the 1870s the Academy had morphed into Greenwich High School & Union Village had morphed in to the village of Greenwich (1867). The school still had the only library in town (or village), and would until 1902.

In May 1902, the Greenwich Free Library opened on Main Street with a few hundred books and a $1,500 mortgage. A group of ladies, known as the Women's Club, had decided that a separate public library was needed, & spent much of the next decade raising money.

Greenwich Free Library 139 Main Street

Fundraising seem to be the main activity. In 1902 there was a clam bake, a garden tea, a card party & countless rummage sales. In 1905 the townspeople voted down a $500 annual allowance for the library, so more card parties & rummage sales were planned. Even a benefit baseball game occurred.

1911 saw $300 in the school budget allotted to the library. By 1951 the amount had increased 500% to $1,500. To this day, a portion of the school budget goes to the library.

In the early days of the library circulation was around 1,500 per year. By the Great Depression it had risen to around 2,600, an increase of about 173%.

The following is quoted from a "folder" (c. 1938) that may have been circulated to folks who might not be sampling all that the library has to offer. The Picture" mentioned is the photograph is used above.

Do you know what your library looks like, where it is located?

Lest there be those who do not know how the Greenwich Free Library looks, a picture of the building is attached to this little folder.

A well worn path leads close to the big window where books are always displayed. Have you added your footprints to this path?

Those who do not take advantage of what the library has to offer are being deprived of a great deal of pleasure and knowledge.

New novels, latest magazines, books of travel, history etc. may be had just for the asking.
There is a pleasant reading room; cool in summertime, warm in winter. Come in and use you Free Public Library.

The circulation in 1937 was 21,961. How many of these did you read? Every resident of Greenwich is entitled to borrow books. If you are a borrower, ask your neighbor to become a borrower, too.

The library is supported by state aid, local tax, gifts of money and by members of the Library Association who pay one dollar a year each.

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested" Bacon

The library has a new website... check it out! http://www.greenwichfreelibrary.com/