[3] The family moved first to Eshton and then Edenfield, where the young Greenhalge (who would change the spelling of his name as an adult) attended private school.

[4] In 1855 the family immigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts, where the father had been offered a job heading the printing department of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company.

[5] Greenhalge attended the public schools of Lowell, where he excelled academically and participated in debating societies.

He left Harvard after three years because his father died, the family finances having suffered a setback due mill closures caused by the American Civil War.

He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1884 and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1885 but was unsuccessful in his bid for reelection.

Pillsbury was opposed by the powerful Senator-elect Henry Cabot Lodge, and Greenhalge was chosen as a relatively safe candidate against the Democrat John E. Russell.

Greenhalge fell ill with kidney disease early into his third term as governor, and died in office on March 5, 1896;[12] businesses and schools closed in his honor.

At his funeral Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Harvard President Charles William Eliot served as pallbearers; he is buried in Lowell Cemetery.