The people of Greensboro have been well served by an active Greensboro library for well over a century. The existence of a very early "library" is suggested by a quit claim of March 30, 1843, in which Henry Blake sold " the old Greensboro town Library" to John L. Porter. Local historians have found no other reference to the library.

There is, however, ample evidence of a Greensboro Library Association that was organized in June of 1873. "It has at present 169 volumes and additions are constantly being made," according to a newspaper fragment of the period found in the wall of an inn in Craftsbury Common. "Luke Eastman is president and L.E. Babbitt, secretary. N.M. Cuthbertson is librarian. No pains are being spared by the society to give the community good reading. A valuable book is to be always coveted and gives a healthy tone to a reading people."

At a special town meeting meeting on December 4, 1900, "the Hon. Henry Stanley Tolman proposed to give the town a deed of building now known as the Library Building," which Judge Tolman had constructed earlier between the Pinney house (now Lauredon Apartments) and Cuthbertson's Store (now Willey's Store). Judge Tolman, a successful farmer and lumberman, had held almost every elective office in town and served as representative and senator in the Vermont legislature. The town elected a board of library trustees and appropriated the sum of one hundred dollars for the maintenance of the library.