One of the treasures that we’ve rediscovered since moving the Indiana Room to its new location on the library’s main floor is a little-known book of plays by William Greenly, a free Black man who lived in New Albany from 1841 to 1859. Greenly self-published his book, The Three Drunkards, in 1858, the same year as William Wells Brown’s The Escape, which is widely acknowledged as the first published play by an African American.
Greenly came to New Albany in 1841 from his native state of Pennsylvania, where he was active in the Pittsburgh African Education Society, the Temperance Society of the Colored People of Pittsburgh and Vicinity, and the Moral Reform Society of Pittsburgh, alongside other prominent Black activists. He lived in New Albany’s West Union neighborhood, the area bordered by State Street, Cherry Street, and West Street, where many of New Albany’s Black residents lived at the time. Greenly worked as a schoolteacher for Black children and continued his political endeavors as a trustee and member of New Albany’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, an institution central to the community. He served as the Church’s Floyd County representative—and the convention secretary—for the 1851 Convention of the People of Color in Indiana, where representatives from different counties discussed legislation and current events impacting Black Hoosiers.
In January 1856, while confined to his bed due to illness, Greenly began writing The Three Drunkards, a short play about temperance—a movement with close ties to abolitionism and one of Greenly’s favorite topics. Two years later he decided to publish The Three Drunkards, along with three other playlets, as a volume. The Floyd County Library has one of only a few surviving copies of the book, which we’ve also made available digitally: https://archive.org/details/ThreeDrunkards/
Greenly left New Albany for Charlestown in 1859 and moved to Terre Haute three years later. He continued his work as a teacher and was an active member of the AME Church in Terre Haute until his death in 1863. We don’t know much more about William Greenly and his life during the almost two decades he lived in New Albany, but library staff continues to search for traces of his contributions to our community. We encourage you to visit the library’s Indiana Room to learn more about notable Black figures in Floyd County’s history in honor of Black History Month!
— Allison Kilberg, Special Collections Leader
