The very name of Greenville is a direct product of the Revolutionary War. The town was originally incorporated in 1771 as Martinsborough, named in honor of North Carolina’s last British Royal Governor, Josiah Martin. As Governor Martin fled the colony and the war heated up, the town’s name became an ideological problem. In 1786, the North Carolina General Assembly officially changed the name to Greenville to honor General Nathanael Greene, the legendary Revolutionary War hero who commanded the Southern campaign and successfully pushed the British out of the Carolinas.
