Greece is a town in Monroe County, New York, United States. A contiguous suburb of Rochester, it is the largest town by population in Monroe County and the second-largest municipality by population in the county, behind only the city of Rochester. As of the 2020 census, the town had a population of 96,926.
History Prehistory Indigenous tribes had settled the area surrounding the Finger Lakes and moved northward to Lake Ontario, the Genesee River, Irondequoit Bay, and the ponds of Greece as early as 1300 AD. These people were Iroquoian tribes, early cousins of the Seneca, who traded with the Algonquin and Wendat (Huron) tribes. By about 1550 AD the Seneca, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga and Onondaga combined to form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. (The Tuscarora would later migrate from the Carolinas and join the Confederacy.) They remained the dominant inhabitants of the region for the next 200 years.
European contact The first European to visit the area was the French explorer La Salle, who visited in 1669. French and British soldiers passed through on multiple occasions during this time period as the two colonial powers struggled for control of the region. European settlers began to arrive in the area in the late 1790s, after the land was formally purchased from the Seneca people.
Early settlement Following the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, the new government was keen to enable its citizens to make use of the new vast regions to the west. In 1792, the first settlers in what would become the town of Greece arrived. William Hincher (a Revolutionary War veteran and a participant in Shays's Rebellion), his wife Mehitable, and their eight children built a cabin on the west bank of the Genesee River and purchased of land in present-day Charlotte in 1794. Following William's death in 1817, a deed was created between Mehitable and the United States government for the establishment of the Charlotte–Genesee Lighthouse on the property, which was constructed in 1822.
In 1797, Kings Landing—the first European settlement and port west of the Genesee River—was established by the King and Granger families (natives of Suffield, Connecticut) on the bank of the Genesee in what is the present-day neighborhood of Charlotte in Rochester. The Grangers were related patrilineally to Gideon Granger, whose home in nearby Canandaigua is a museum. The Kings Landing settlement survived until it was decimated by malaria, then known as "Genesee Fever". In 1807 the settlement was revived by the seven Hanford brothers (and renamed "Hanford's Landing"), who constructed a mill, hotel and shipping center on the land.
In 1805, James and Sarah Latta (natives of Big Flats) purchased large plots of land in Charlotte for their family. The following year, their son Samuel built a home and warehouse on the property and was appointed customs agent for the Port of Charlotte by the President of the United States. The home built by Samuel Latta still stands at the intersection of Lake Ave and Latta Road.
Greece in the War of 1812 On October 1, 1812, the British warship H.M.S. Royal George waded at the mouth of the Genesee River. Seventy British marines entered the harbor and seized a United States revenue cutter, a vessel named the Lady Murray, and a privately owned schooner. The following day the British returned as the riggings for the Lady Murray were kept in a storehouse at the Commercial Hotel operated by Erastus Spaulding (on a site near the present-day intersection of Stutson Street and River Street in Charlotte) and seized the missing equipment along with two gallons of whiskey.
On June 15, 1813, after learning that provisions for American troops were being stored at Charlotte, a fleet of eight British vessels under the command of Commodore James Yeo entered the Genesee River. 150 British sailors came ashore and seized the provisions along with a sloop which belonged to Erastus Spaulding. To prevent the people of Charlotte from alerting the militia, the British troops rounded them up and locked them overnight in a building owned by Frederick Bushnell and the Samuel Latta Home. A couple of men who managed to evade capture alerted the militia which was gathered at the Steamboat Hotel in Hanford's Landing (a distance of about ). Under the command of Colonel Caleb Hopkins the militia marched to Charlotte and arrived just in time to see the British vessels sailing away.
On September 11, 1813, the American fleet under the command of Commodore Isaac Chauncey caught up with the British fleet at Braddock Bay, in the northwest corner of present-day Greece. At 2:30 pm offshore of Charlotte, the American fleet began closing in and came within three-quarters of a mile of the enemy ships, putting them within long gun range. The USS Pike and the USS Sylph bombarded the British fleet with cannon fire for 90 minutes, but due to the poor maneuverability of the American ships the British were able to escape.
On May 15, 1814, British ships anchored off the shore of Charlotte were spotted by Colonel Isaac Stone. Thirty-three men from Greece, Gates, Rochester and Brighton gathered at the Hanford Inn and marched through the night, arriving at the mouth of the Genesee River at dawn. Due to heavy fog the British believed a much larger force was gathered on the shore. Stone refused initial demands of truce, which were to surrender the provisions being stored at Charlotte. In response the British dispatched a gunboat to the harbor. Stone wanted to capture the boat, but his militia prematurely fired their cannon. The British fired 15-20 shots in return, striking a warehouse. That afternoon, General Peter Porter and the militias under the commands of Colonel Caleb Hopkins, Colonel John Atchinson and Captain Frederick Rose (600-800 men in total) arrived in Charlotte. The British sent a second truce and threatened to land an army and 400 warriors from Tecumseh's confederacy if they did not comply. General Porter again refused the demands and warned that if the British landed "they would be taken care of". Not knowing how many men were defending Charlotte, Yeo and his ships sailed away on the morning of May 16, 1814.
Establishment of the Town of Greece During the late 18th century, counties were established to provide support to the western frontier of New York state. By 1789 Ontario and Genesee counties had been established, and in 1797 a region called Northampton had been designated in the eastern portion of Genesee County on land that had been acquired through the Phelps & Gorham land purchase. Northampton encompassed the area of present-day Parma, Riga, Gates, Ogden, Chili, and Greece.
In 1808, Northampton was divided into four towns. The area that is present-day Gates and Greece maintained the name Northampton until the town of Gates was formally established in 1813. In 1821, Monroe County was created from land of both Ontario and Genesee counties. On March 22, 1822, the state government passed legislation which, effective April 1, 1822, divided Gates into the modern towns of Gates and Greece. The town of Greece received a larger percentage of the land because it was believed that most of the northern portion of the town was unusable swamp land. The name Greece was selected in support of the contemporary Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire.
1822-present The portion of the Erie Canal which passes through the town of Greece was completed by 1822. The hamlet of "South Greece" (present-day Henpeck Park at the intersection of Ridgeway Avenue and Elmgrove Road) was established to facilitate the needs of travelers and workers on the canal. Some of the stone masons who came from Europe to help build the canal remained in the area and are thought to be responsible for the construction of cobblestone homes which are somewhat unique to the Central and Western New York region. Three such structures remain in the town as of 2024, including the Covert-Brodie-Pollok House on North Greece Road.
Throughout the 19th century Greece was primarily a farming community with a population that hovered around 5,000 people, and additional hamlets such as North Greece, West Greece, Greece Center, Barnard Crossing and Paddy Hill were formed. Much of the economic activity in the town centered on the port of Charlotte, which was incorporated as a village within the town of Greece in 1869, and facilitated up to 100 ships in the port and along the Genesee River in a day.
The town’s proximity to Lake Ontario made it a famous vacation destination in the latter portion of the 19th century. The Ontario Beach Amusement Park (operating from 1884-1919), located on the site of the present-day Ontario Beach Park, was known as the "Coney Island of the West". Another amusement park at Manitou Beach (operating from the 1890s to the 1920s) was connected to Charlotte via the Grand View Beach Railway, and grand resort hotels such as the Manitou Hotel, Crescent Beach Hotel and the Odenbach Hotel sprang up along the route to accommodate visitors. The Dentzel Menagerie Carousel, a reminder of the amusement parks' heyday, still operates at Ontario Beach Park.
It was around this same time that the economy of Greece began to shift from agriculture to industry. In 1891, George Eastman opened the first Kodak plant in the southeast area of town (at the intersection of Mount Read Boulevard and West Ridge Road) that would eventually become known as Kodak Park. Kodak would eventually become the largest employer in the greater Rochester region, and its success is directly responsible for the town's growth. As the city of Rochester expanded, it annexed large portions of the town. Charlotte was annexed in 1916 (creating the city's 23rd Ward), and the industrial district of Kodak Park was annexed in 1918.
This economic shift continued steadily throughout the interwar period. It was during this time that weather extremes, such as a severe freeze in 1934 which destroyed many of the town's orchards, resulted in a devastating loss of crops that many farmers were not able to recover from. As a result, much of the farm land was sold for real estate development. Due to its proximity to Kodak Park, the town transformed as residential construction to support soldiers returning from World War II attracted large numbers of factory workers and their families to Greece. The population grew rapidly during this time, from roughly 15,000 people in 1940 to almost 50,000 by 1960, and by 1967 the population was approaching 75,000.
Geography
The Ridge At the end of the last ice age, around 11,000 BCE, much of the land making up the town of Greece was covered by a prehistoric lake which was created by glacial ice sheets that prevented the lake from draining via the St Lawrence River as it does today. This lake, known as Lake Iroquois, was in essence an enlargement of present-day Lake Ontario. As the glaciers receded, the waters of Lake Iroquois began to drop to modern levels, leaving behind a ridge of land roughly from the current shoreline and rising to about above sea level, roughly above Lake Ontario. The soil deposited in these receded regions was rich and fertile for agricultural purposes. This ridge had long been used by Native Americans as a footpath and to this day it is the main thoroughfare of the town, known to locals colloquially as "the Ridge".