Greenwood City

Greenwood is a pleasant farming and manufacturing town in Oxford County, formerly known as No. 4 Township, of which 11,520 acres were granted to Phillips Academy in 1800.   While some authorities suggest that the corporate name describes its main product as well as its forest-clad hills, it is probable that it was given in compliment to Alexander Greenwood, a surveyor of this section.  

The settlement of the township was begun by William Yates, who was soon followed by others.   Yate’s first house, on Patch Mountain, was a crude log cabin which served as a home for the family until a grand house was erected a few years later.   This was the first frame house in Greenwood.   Yates was a farmer and Methodist preacher.   He was soon followed in the settlement of Greenwood by Thomas Furlong and Timothy Patch.   The latter, from whom the mountain received its name, was probably the next comer after Yates to make a clearing and bring his family to the place.   Simeon Sanborn built the first mills at Greenwood City, and they became the early center of business and social life.  

Thomas Furlong’s clearing was north of the mills and was probably made before the mills were built.   Amos Richardson settled between Furlong and the mills, but Patch Mountain became the first center and here was built the first schoolhouse in the town. The residents of No. 4 met at the house of Simeon Sanborn in 1813 to organize a plantation government.   Each season brought in new settlers.   The town was incorporated in 1816.   The chief industry was the manufacture of lumber and spools.   Most of the lumber for the early homes in Greenwood must have been sawed at Sanborn’s Mills.