Editing Greensboro, Pennsylvania (section)

===Early development===

Glassmaking was the primary industry for many Monongahela River towns, including the city of Pittsburgh as well as small towns such as New Geneva and Greensboro, for several decades preceding the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]. The late 18th-early 19th century [[New Geneva Glass Works|New Geneva/Greensboro glassworks]] proved that quality glass, natural resources, and transportation networks could be effectively harnessed. After the Civil War, the manufacture of [[stoneware]] became Greensboro's leading industry, in addition to a prosperous clay tile manufacturer who specialized in roofing tiles. The mid 19th-century Greensboro stoneware potteries were among the most productive in the eastern United States. Talented artisans and craftsmen, along with the excellent nearby clay banks produced a distinctive blue-gray stoneware which had a large market. Due to its location at the head of the slack waters of the Monongahela, Greensboro's influence as a commercial and manufacturing center expanded far beyond its small boundaries.

By the 1850s, the slack water system of locks and dams had been developed by the Monongahela Navigation Company<ref>{{Cite web| url=https://www.loc.gov/item/pa3178/| title=Monongahela Navigation Company Lock & Dam No. 7, River Mile No. 82.5, Greensboro, Greene County, PA| publisher=[[Library of Congress]]| access-date=January 27, 2017}}</ref> (later acquired by the [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|Army Corps of Engineers]]), allowing for year-round travel from Pittsburgh to the Greensboro area. This permitted Greensboro to become a shipping point not only for southern Greene County but for parts of what is now northern [[West Virginia]] as well. Its growing industrial, commercial, and transportation significance in the mid-19th century helped transform the town into a social and cultural center. In the 1880s, Greensboro essentially lost the pottery and clay tile market due to more efficient producers, and with the extension of slack water transportation to [[Morgantown, West Virginia|Morgantown]] became a more localized port.

During this period, many of the present churches in the community were established, with the Greensburgh [[Lutheran]] Church forming first. Other churches soon followed, such as the [[Presbyterians]], [[Baptists]], [[Methodists]], and eventually, [[Roman Catholics]] and [[Eastern Orthodox]]. As was the tradition for early churches, particularly [[Protestants]], most of these groups began meeting for worship in a member's home, or during fair weather outside under large tents, with "[[circuit rider (religious)|circuit riders]]" as pastors until formal church structures could be built and an established clergy formed.