Greenville celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, but the area was settled long before that.
With its neighbors celebrating more than 200 years, Greenville is a bit of an outlier because it did not get its start as many other New England towns do. Greenville, in fact, was once part of the Town of Mason, before a contentious division.
Greenville, once known as Mason Village, had become an industrial center thanks to its location on the Souhegan River and its manufacturing mills. Long before the creation of Greenville in 1872, people were living and working in the area. In 1764, Amos Dakin became the first settler in the village, operating a saw and grist mill, the first of what would become a thriving mill industry in town. And by 1860s standards, it was far removed from the Mason Center, where the Mason Town Hall and elementary school have their home today.
The growing village population began to propose that annual Town Meetings should be held closer to home. The propositions hit the floor of Town Meeting in 1869 began a long battle between the two sides of town.
“It was a center of business, and it was the center of the population,” explained Greenville Historical Society President Marshall Buttrick. “It is similar to towns like Wilton and Jaffrey, where over time, the business center became different from the geographical center.”
Some divisions had already happened. Mason Village had built its own Baptist and Congregational churches, and the town’s largest school had been built there. It also had its own post office.
While the majority of the population wasn’t in the village, it was the densest population center, despite being on the edge of town, due to the location of the Souhegan River providing water power for the mills and eventually the construction of the railway depot and daily trains. When the town hall was in need of repair, the residents of Mason Village began to suggest it might be time to move the town’s center to the village.
That first year of debate had two articles brought by petition — one to move the town records to the village, and the other to hold all future Town Meetings there. The first, after debate, was rejected. The other was tabled indefinitely.
Undeterred, village residents brought the same two articles by petition the next year. This time, both articles were tabled.
Yet again, in 1871, the issue was back on the warrant. In 1871, village residents petitioned to hold all future Town Meetings in Mason Village. This time, a separate article was also proposed to see if the town would vote to sell the current townhouse and land. Voters indefinitely postponed a vote on the first article but debated so long on the second that the meeting had to be adjourned and reconvened the next day, but ultimately with the same result.
Those meetings heralded the end of Mason as it once was.
A month after the protracted 1871 Town Meeting, villagers petitioned to revisit the articles dealing with the Mason Village. A moderator supported by village residents was chosen by a vote of 150-144. Finally, with only a two-vote difference, the village managed to pass one of its propositions moving the town center to the Village.
Satisfied, most of the voters from the village – including the newly elected moderator – left the meeting, but the moderator had never declared the meeting adjourned. A group of eight voters, led by James Russell, questioned the vote, and those still left at the meeting appointed Russell to lead the meeting in absence of the moderator. Russell took the helm, and the votes in favor of the village were rescinded.
This was the breaking point for the two halves of town. In May of that year, a Town Meeting was called by petition to start the process of petitioning the Legislature to divide the town, allowing Mason Village to become a separate town.
Both residents of Mason and the soon-to-be Greenville made similar petitions to the Legislature — though Mason eventually withdrew its petition — in a deceptively simple plea consisting of a single paragraph, that the interests of the Mason Village would be promoted by being a separate entity.
In 1872, after approval from the Legislature, Greenville was incorporated as a separate town.