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Greenville is a town in Piscataquis County, incorporated on February 6, 1836 from Haskell Plantation. It annexed land on August 10, 1848 from Wilson, whose remains were distributed to Shirley and Elliotsville.
Nathaniel Haskell of Westbrook bought the Thornton Academy Grant, the southern part of the township, began clearing trees in 1824, and moved his family there in 1827.
In 1836, Henry Gower built the first store in Greenville village, located at the southern end of Moosehead Lake, the largest in New England. After a small steamboat was launched in 1836 to tow logs, the first large lake steamer went into operation in 1838. Several steamers by the name of Katahdin plied the waters in later years.
The town serves as the gateway to Lily Bay State Park and to the upper reaches of the lake via combined Maine Routes 6 and 15.
Greenville was first settled in 1820 and was named after its green forests. It is perched at the wilderness edge of sparsely populated Piscataquis County, only 35 miles north of the county seat, Dover-Foxcroft. Historically, Greenville has been perceived as the gateway to the north woods and, of course, to Moosehead Lake, the largest body of fresh water in the state.
Located north of the 45th parallel, on a line with Montreal, Greenville climatically and vegetatively has more in common with the northernmost United States and southern Canada than it has with southern Maine.
from: Moosehead historical Society It wasn't until the late 1700's that the white man came to the Moosehead region. In 1764, a surveying party from Massachusetts visited the area. While the first white man to view Moosehead Lake is not known, it wasn't until 1824 that a settlement began at Greenville. Within decades, settlements throughout the woods began to spring up, some with no more than a handful of hardy people.
There is no question the Moosehead Lake region was much more difficult to reach in the early 1800's than today. The overland journey was long and difficult by stage or horse-drawn wagon. But as has happened in so many other areas, the migration began as people sought a new and better way of life. What was to become Greenville was first surveyed and lotted as Township 9, Range 10 North of the Waldo Patent (T9, R10 NWP). The township was a public grant by the Massachusetts Legislature in about 1812 (at that time, of course, Maine was a part of Massachusetts). Records show that the southern part, about 11,000 acres (45 kmē), was granted to Thornton Academy in Saco and the northern portion went to Saco Free Bridge. In 1824, Nathaniel Haskell of Westbrook purchased the southern 11,000 acres (45 kmē). He began an aggressive sales pitch to friends and neighbors in the Portland area, and soon had enticed several people to join him in the wilderness. Among these earliest settlers were Isaac Sawyer, Edmund Scammon, Oliver Young, William Cummings, Enoch Shaw, Ichabod Tufts and Charles Meservey. Records indicate that the first boy born in the new settlement was Alpheys D. Tufts, son of Ichabod Tufts, and the first girl was Bethiah Shaw, daughter of Enoch Shaw.
The grants were organized on August 20, 1831 under the name Haskell Plantation. In 1835, it was voted to have the plantation incorporated, and strangely, it was decided to call the settlement "Cuba." At a meeting a short time later, the name was changed to New Saco, but by the time the petition went to the legislature, the name had been changed to Greenville. At the time of incorporation, the town was in Somerset County, but when Piscataquis County was organized in 1838, it was included in that county where it remains today. Perhaps surprisingly, the first settlement was not nestled along the shores of Moosehead Lake where the Village is today located. Rather, the original settlers moved to an area near Wilson Pond where there was fast water to operate a mill and good farming land. In the summer of 1824, Nathaniel Haskell and Oliver Young cut 10 acres (40,000 mē) of trees and John Smith, Mr. Haskell's son in-law, cut six acres (24,000 mē) on an adjoining lot. The following year, part of a road was cut to Moosehead Lake.
In 1827, Haskell brought Deborah Walden, his widowed daughter with three children to live with him. A sister of Mrs. Walden's spent the summer with her but left in the fall, and for more than a year afterward she never saw another woman. It has been said that Mrs. Walden would later jokingly tell people that she was "the handsomest woman in town." Stories also were told about Mrs. Walden, undoubtedly a woman of uncommon determination and inner strength, Iying awake in bed at night listening to wolves howling, and her deals with local Indians. Although the Indians were friendly, she most likely would be frightened with small children in the house. Deborah Walden later married Oliver Young and they had several children to join her earlier three. Deborah Walden Young lived to be 87 and died in 1880. She is buried in the Greenville Cemetery.
During the early 1830s, many new structures were built, and expansion was in the winds. A number of small farms were carved out of the wilderness and other mills were constructed. At the time the town was incorporated in 1836, the present Village site was being settled. A road had been cut through from the early settlement to East Cove at the foot of the lake. Henry Gower arrived to clear a piece of land overlooking Moosehead Lake where he built a two-story hotel which he called the Seboomook House. The hotel flourished, mainly because of land speculators, lumbermen and others who were coming to the area. Mr. Gower later opened the first store in town (1845) which his brother Charles continued to run for many years. By most accounts, in 1846 the Village consisted of a hotel, a store, two houses, two blacksmith shops and a schoolhouse.
In 1846, a small steamboat was built and was used for towing rafted logs on Moosehead Lake. This was the beginning of the steamboat era which continued for well over 100 years. Even today, the restored steamship Katahdin operates on Moosehead Lake, but now transporting tourists rather than towing logs. With business flourishing and travel becoming easier (by the standards of those days), more people came to the Moosehead region. In 1846, the Eveleth House was constructed, becoming the second hotel in town.
The first religious gathering in town was in a small log cabin on a now abandoned road between the Blair estate atop Blair Hill and the Blair Annex buildings. James Withee was the first "settled minister," and he was both a farmer and preacher. The congregation needed a regular meeting site (meetings were being held in various houses) and in 1858 the people united in constructing a meeting house. Called the Greenville Union Meeting House, it was dedicated on December 1, 1859. In 1868, James Cameron, a Presbyterian layman, awakened an interest which culminated in the organizing of a Union Church (now the Union Evangelical Church, United Church of Christ). In the early days, Methodist circuit riders traveled between Howland and Moosehead Lake, preaching in Greenville only on occasion. Methodist meetings were started by Elijah Young and a small church was started.
Although the Civil War had little direct impact this far north, there were 47 men from the area who served, and that was a considerable number considering the population at the time. By 1869, the Bangor and Piscataquis Railroad (later the Bangor and Aroostook) was inching its way to Greenville. By 1871 it reached Guilford, Abbot in 1875 and Blanchard in 1877. Here it was delayed for seven years and some residents of Greenville wondered if it would ever reach Moosehead Lake. In July 1884 the problems had been resolved and the train reached Greenville Junction. By 1888, the Canadian Pacific Railroad also reached Greenville, and thus the remote town in the wilderness was served by two railroads.
By the turn of the century, the "modern age" arrived in Greenville. Many new buildings were constructed, residences and businesses. That expansion continues today, despite numerous periods of boom and bust, Returning to the Methodist heritage of the area, in 1898 the Rev. George Martin, identified as an assistant to Rev. Davison, began to hold regular church services in the Greenville Junction schoolhouse every Sunday afternoon. A regular Sunday School was established. The following year, 1899, Rev. Martin began devoting all of his time to the Junction, and the People's United Methodist Church came into being. The church was dedicated on December 9, 1900. The church building was repaired, remodeled and rededicated in 1921. Ronald W, Walden, now a minister in Bangor, served the People's church during the 1970s. He is a direct descendant of the first white woman settler, Mrs. Deborah Walden.