[1] One of the first cotton mills in the South and probably the first in this state was established at Greensboro in 1832. It closed about 20 years afterwards, and in 1889 new mills were built. Three very large mills were built in the decade after 1895, and three mill villages, Proximity, Revolution and White Oak, named from these three mills, lie immediately N. of the city; in 1908 their population was estimated at 8000. The owners of these mills maintain schools for the children of operatives and carry on “welfare work” in these villages.
GREENSBURG, a borough and the county-seat of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 31 m. E.S.E. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 4202; (1900) 6508 (484 foreign-born); (1910) 5420. It is served by two lines of the Pennsylvania railway. It is an important coal centre, and manufactures engines, iron and brass goods, flour, lumber and bricks. In addition to its public school system, it has several private schools, including St Mary’s Academy and St Joseph’s Academy, both Roman Catholic. About 3 m. N.E. of what is now Greensburg stood the village of Hanna’s Town, settled about 1770 and almost completely destroyed by the Indians on the 13th of July 1782; here what is said to have been the first court held west of the Alleghanies opened on the 6th of April 1773, and the county courts continued to be held here until 1787. Greensburg was settled in 1784-1785, immediately after the opening of the state road, not far from the trail followed by General John Forbes on his march to Fort Duquesne in 1758; it was made the county-seat in 1787, and was incorporated in 1799. In 1905 the boroughs of Ludwick (pop. in 1900, 901), East Greensburg (1050), and South-east Greensburg (620) were merged with Greensburg.
See John N. Boucher’s History of Westmoreland County, Pa. (3 vols., New York, 1906).
GREENSHANK, one of the largest of the birds commonly known as sandpipers, the Totanus glottis of most ornithological writers. Some exercise of the imagination is however needed to see in the dingy olive-coloured legs of this species a justification of the English name by which it goes, and the application of that name, which seems to be due to Pennant, was probably by way of distinguishing it from two allied but perfectly distinct species of Totanus (T. calidris and T. fuscus) having red legs and usually called redshanks. The greenshank is a native of the northern parts of the Old World, but in winter it wanders far to the south, and occurs regularly at the Cape of Good Hope, in India and thence throughout the Indo-Malay Archipelago to Australia. It has also been recorded from North America, but its appearance there must be considered accidental. Almost as bulky as a woodcock, it is of a much more slender build, and its long legs and neck give it a graceful appearance, which is enhanced by the activity of its actions. Disturbed from the moor or marsh, where it has its nest, it rises swiftly into the air, conspicuous by its white back and rump, and uttering shrill cries flies round the intruder. It will perch on the topmost bough of a tree, if a tree be near, to watch his proceedings, and the cock exhibits all the astounding gesticulations in which the males of so many other Limicolae indulge during the breeding-season—with certain variations, however, that are peculiarly its own. It breeds in no small numbers in the Hebrides, and parts of the Scottish Highlands from Argyllshire to Sutherland, as well as in the more elevated or more northern districts of Norway, Sweden and Finland, and probably also thence to Kamchatka. In North America it is represented by two species, Totanus semipalmatus and T. melanoleucus, there called willets, telltales or tattlers, which in general habits resemble the greenshank of the Old World.
(A. N.)
GREENVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Washington county, Mississippi, U.S.A., on the E. bank of the Mississippi river, about 75 m. N. of Vicksburg. Pop. (1890) 6658; (1900) 7642 (4987 negroes); (1910) 9610. Greenville is served by the Southern and the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley railways, and by various passenger and freight steamboat lines on the Mississippi river. It is situated in the centre of the Yazoo Delta, a rich cotton-producing region, and its industries are almost exclusively connected with that staple. There are large warehouses, compresses and gins, extensive cotton-seed oil works and sawmills. Old Greenville, about 1 m. S. of the present site, was the county seat of Jefferson county until 1825 (when Fayette succeeded it), and later became the county-seat of Washington county. Much of the old town caved into the river, and during the Civil War it was burned by the Federal forces soon after the capture of Memphis. The present site was then adopted. The town of Greenville was incorporated in 1870; in 1886 it was chartered as a city.