Greenfield, Massachusetts, was without a public hospital until 1895, when a group of concerned citizens decided to form a corporation in order to purchase a hospital. In July of that year they rented a Greenfield home. In 1897, they moved, purchasing the property pictured here from Henry Couillard. It was located on Main Street. Originally, it had been a private home owned by James Converse, a Pennsylvania business executive who chose Greenfield to retire to. Converse had expanded a previous property into what one biography called an “elegant country home,” where he lived until his death in 1891.