The town of Greece is having their bicentennial this year. It was formed on March 22, 1822 from the much larger old Town of Northfield.
The Greece Historical Society has published Pioneer Families of the Town of Greece, Volume 1 by Marie Villone Poinan and Jo Ann Ward Snyder. It contains family histories and old family photos of families that lived in Greece before 1872. The Table of Contents has these families listed: Baker, Beaty, Bemish/Lane/Wilder, Britton, Captain John Burns, Terry Burns, Butts, Carpenter/Toal, Cole/Kenyon, Denise, Eddy, Farnan, Fetzner, Joseph and Patrick Fleming, Robert Fleming, Goodwin, Hogan, Janes, Johnson, Kirk, Latta, Lay, Lowden, Mitchell, Mura, Nash, Newcomb, O’Neil, Perrin, Preston, James, Reilly, Reniff, Shearman, Speer/Carroll, Thorpe, Tiernan/McGee, Upton, Veeder, Veness, Volkmar.
The book is available from the Greece Historical Society gift shop but only on Mondays from 10 to noon. Their price is $30 including the tax. You can also buy a copy on Amazon. You can see a preview of a few pages on the Amazon listing. They are selling there for $27.95 plus tax (plus shipping if you do not have Amazon Prime). Supplies are limited at both the Greece Museum and on Amazon but more copies are expected soon. A second volume is still in the planning stage. If you have an early Greece family you can submitted documents using forms found on the home page of the Greece Historical Society website. Those documents need to be submitted by May 1st. The second volume should be published in the fall.
The Town of Greece created a web page called “Town of Greece Bicentennial Historic Resources Survey.” Sections include: transportation, industrial, residential, cemeteries, agriculture, and landmarks. This has lots of historical information on the town and lots of pictures. I spent an hour on there and didn’t even come close to reading everything.
Lastly, there is a 2022 Historic Greece calendar available. I picked a free copy at the Greece Library. They are probably at other locations in the Town.
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Updated: Jan. 22, 2022
Hi Dick,
Thanks so much for featuring our new book. The NYS Legislature passed the law of March 22 and Greece became a town on April 1, 1822. My co-author Jo Ann and I started compiling information and talking to descendants in March and did most of our research during the pandemic by phone and computer! JoAnn and I are currently looking for additional pioneer families to appear in Volume 2. Descendants can fill in a submission packet which can be downloaded from the http://Www.greecehistoricalsociety.org home page. The deadline for submitting family names is May 1st and the next book will be published in the fall of 2022.
Thank you for posting this information, Dick!
The Bemish family is part of my extended family from the early to mid 1800’s, and, so far, I’ve only been able to find several names and dates for them.
I am very excited to learn of this book, and I look forward to reading it. I’m grateful to the authors who took the time to do all the research and to write the book. Doing research on the early 1800’s is difficult!