Lt. Gov. William Greene

William Greene (lieutenant governor)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William Greene (January 1, 1797 - March 24, 1883) was a lieutenant governor of the state of Rhode Island, serving for two years shortly after the American Civil War.

Life

From a prominent Rhode Island family, Greene was the son of United States Senator and Rhode Island Attorney General Ray Greene and his wife Mary M. Flagg. Greene was also the grandson of the second governor of the state, William Greene who served for several years during the American Revolutionary War, and the great grandson of William Greene who served 11 one-year terms as a colonial governor of Rhode Island. Greene also descends from John Greene, Jr. who served for ten years as deputy governor of the Rhode Island colony, from Warwick founders John Greene, Samuel Gorton, and Randall Holden, and from Frances (Latham) Dungan, the "mother of governors."[1]

Greene graduated from Brown University and studied law at Litchfield in Connecticut. Following this he went to Ohio about 1820, and spent more than four decades there, promoting the Cincinnati public schools and roads.[2] Greene delivered a Phi Beta Kappa Address at Brown in 1851, which supported the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and criticized those who violated the law (abolitionists).[3] He returned to Warwick in 1862, and was selected as Rhode Island's Lieutenant Governor in 1866, under Governor Ambrose Burnside, shortly after the Civil War. He served for two years.[2]

Greene died in Warwick in 1883 and was buried in the Governor Greene Cemetery where his father, grandfather, and great grandfather are all buried, along with their wives. Family

Greene was married in 1821 to Abby Bracket Lyman, the daughter of Erastus Lyman, and the couple had two daughters: Catharine Ray Greene (1824-1864) and Anna Jean Greene (1827-1831). He married second Caroline Brenton Burge.[4] Sources

Austin, pp. 67,302-5. Turner, p. 70. Alfred L. Brophy, The Rule of Law in College Literary Addresses: The Case of William Greene, Cumberland Law Review (2001) 32: 231-85.

   "Greene family group". Retrieved 8 June 2012.

Bibliography

   Austin, John Osborne (1887). Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island. ISBN 978-0-8063-0006-1.

Turner, Henry Edward (1877). Greenes of Warwick in Colonial History. Davis & Pitman, Steam Printers.
Further reading

   Bicknell, Thomas Williams (1920). The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Vol.3. New York: The American Historical Society. OCLC 1953313.

See also

   Ray Greene for his paternal ancestry

Bibliographic details for "William Greene (lieutenant governor)"

• Page name: William Greene (lieutenant governor)
• Author: Wikipedia contributors
• Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
• Date of last revision: 27 July 2014 16:43 UTC
• Date retrieved: 2 February 2015 03:16 UTC
• Permanent link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Greene_(lieutenan...
• Primary contributors: Revision history statistics
• Page Version ID: 618692336

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The Hon. WILLIAM GREENE, died in Warwick, March 24, 1883, at the age of eighty-six years, two months and twenty-three days. He was born in Warwick, January 1, 1797, and was the son of the Hon. Ray Greene, a Senator of the United States from Rhode Island, from 1797 to his death in 1801. His grandfather, William Greene, was Governor of the State from 1778 to 1786, as his great-grandfather, also bearing the same name, had been, with three interruptions of one year each, from 1743 to 1758. Mr. Greene received a liberal education. In his boyhood he was a student at Kent Academy, in East Greenwich, and afterwards at a school in Hartford, under the tuition of George Jaffrey Patten, a celebrated teacher of the time. He entered Brown University in 1813, and graduated in 1817 with the highest rank in his class. He subsequently studied law at Litchfield, Conn., at the well known Law School then existing there, and on being admitted to the bar, he went to the West to engage in the practice of his profession. He resided first in Columbus, Ohio, but at length established himself in Cincinnati where he rose to eminence at the bar and also became distinguished for his devotion to public interests and for the services which he rendered to the city and the State of his adoption. He was a leader in the establishment of the system of public education which gave to Ohio her early preeminence among the States of the West. He was also greatly interested in politics and an ardent votary of Henry Clay. He, however, never lost his affection for his native State. He was accustomed almost every summer to return to Warwick and spend a few weeks on the shores of Narragansett Bay, and thus to keep alive the friendships and the memories of his youthful days. After a residence of nearly forty years in Ohio he became afflicted with a disease of the eyes which for a time deprived him of sight. He came to New England for treatment and on his recovery in 1862 took up his abode once more on the ancestral estate, and in the ancestral mansion at Warwick, and here he spent the remainder of his honorable and useful life. Though he mingled little in public affairs, he continued to feel the liveliest patriotic interest in the fortunes of the country then in the midst of the fiery trials of the civil war. In 1866, at the age of sixty-nine years, he was chosen Lieutenant Governor of the State, and again in 1867, filling the office for two years with dignity and honor. While in the West he wrote much for the newspapers on the political questions of the times, and in 1851 he delivered an oration at commencement before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Brown University, which was published. Its subject was “ Some of the difficulties attending the administration of a free government.” He always cherished a warm interest in the institutions and the history of his native State, in which his ancestors for several generations had been distinguished citizens. He became a life member of this Society in 1872, and by many generous gifts and kindly services he showed his appreciation of the objects which it is designed to promote.

Bibliographic information:

• Title Proceedings of the Rhode Island Historical Society
• Author Rhode Island Historical Society
• Publisher Society, 1883
• Original from University of Chicago
• Digitized Oct 1, 2013
• Page 74
• https://books.google.com/books?id=9UQ9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=...

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2938. WILLIAM(1) GREENE (Ray(6) William(5) William(4) Mary(3) Benjamin(2) Samuel(1)), born in Warwick, Jan. i, 1797, married (1), April 30, 1821, Abby Bracket Lyman, daughter of Erastus and (Bracket) Lyman. She died July 18, 1862, and he married (2) Caroline Brenton (Burge) Manchester. There were no children by last marriage. He graduated at Brown University, studied law at Litchfield, and settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1820, where for forty-two years most of his active life was spent, especially in the development of its public schools, a greater portion of that time officially connected with them. He returned to his early home in Warwick in 1862, where he resided on the old ancestral estate. He was elected Lieut. -Governor of Rhode Island in 1866, and again in 1867, with Gen. Burnside as Governor. He died March 24, 1883.

Children :

71 18. Catharine R. Greene, born March 20, 1824, married Dr. Frdk C. Rolker.

7119. Anna Jean Greene, born April 20, 1827, died July 31, 1831.

Bibliographic information:

• Title: The life and times of Samuel Gorton; (1907)
• Author: Gorton, Adelos, 1848- [from old catalog]
• Subject: Gorton, Samuel, 1592-1677. [from old catalog]; Gorton family (Samuel Gorton, 1592-1677) [from old catalog]; Rhode Island -- History Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
• Publisher: Philadelphia [G. S. Ferguson co., printers]
• Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
• Language: English
• Call number: 8215791
• Digitizing sponsor: Sloan Foundation
• Book contributor: The Library of Congress
• Collection: library_of_congress; americana
• Full catalog record: MARCXML
• Page 455
• https://archive.org/stream/lifetimesofsamue00gort#page/454/mode/1up

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:STSM-QKJ