GREENE – Tucked away on the top floor of Moore Memorial Library, the Greene Historical Society Museum is dedicated to both preserving the town’s history and keeping it alive.
“We really have a treasure trove,” said GHS President Nancy Bromley, of the diversity of artifacts which comprise the small museum’s ever-growing collection.
One of the most recent acquisitions has Bromley and other members of the society excited, both because of its historical significance, and that it has led to the group’s first successful grant application.
The item in question is a map, gifted to the historical society earlier this year by Greene-native Ruth Maxine Filer Thompson.
“She inherited the map from her mother, who was a district school teacher in East Greene, what is now Brisben,” Bromley reported.
The map, hand-drawn in ink and water color on very fine parchment paper stitched to a linen cloth, depicts the subdivision of the northeast portion of the township of Greene south and east of the Chenango River. It is identified by an inscription as copied by Joseph Julliand on July 1, 1823; and is believed to be the town land grant map from which Julliand, a land agent, worked as he sold parcels of the Livingston Tract.
The 16,138 acre tract – which included parts of what is now Brisben, Greene and Coventry – was granted to Walter Livingston in 1788, after purchase of the area which is now Chenango County was purchased from the Oneida and Tuscaroras as a result of a treaty negotiated by General George Clinton.
The tract’s 152 parcels, each averaging approximately 106 acres, are delineated on the map. Each is numbered, with the precise acreage, name of the buyer and the amount paid for the land noted in script. The Chenango River, Tillotson Creek and other landmarks are also noted, and roads such as Hogsback and Hartman Hill Roads are identified.
