Rev. William Mercer Green, Jr.

Rev. William Mercer Green, Jr.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mercer_Green
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/11432749/william_mercer_green
• https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/green-william-mercer
• https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/01120/
• https://archivesguides.sewanee.edu/repositories/5/resources/54

Rt. Rev. William Mercer Green was an amazing man. He was the first Bishop of Mississippi. He founded St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough, North Carolina. He was consecrated in Mississippi in 1850 by Bishops Otey of Tennessee, and Polk of Louisiana. (His grandson, incidentally is named Otey Polk Green!) History books of the day are filled with the marriages and baptisms he performed and sermons he gave. He was the founder of the University of the South at Chapel Hill which is still there today. It was built with bricks made in a kiln on Rev. Green's own property. He was interested in Family History. He prepared a "tree" of the Bradley Branch of the Sharpless family, which was instrumental to the family's compilation of their genealogy and their family reunion, which Rev. Green attended and was considered a guest of honor, in 1882. He lived through the Civil War and the ravages to his beloved home. When his son died of yellow fever in 1878, his friend, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote a poem for him and sent it to him with his condolences. The poem is as follows:

The Chamber Over the Gate

Is it so far from thee

Thou canst no longer see,

In the Chamber over the Gate,

That old man desolate,

Weeping and wailing sore

For his son, who is no more?

   O Absalom, my son! 

Is it so long ago

That cry of human woe

From the walled city came,

Calling on his dear name,

That it has died away

In the distance of to-day?

   O Absalom, my son! 

There is no far or near,

There is neither there nor here,

There is neither soon nor late,

In that Chamber over the Gate,

Nor any long ago

To that cry of human woe,

   O Absalom, my son! 

From the ages that are past

The voice sounds like a blast,

Over seas that wreck and drown,

Over tumult of traffic and town;

And from ages yet to be

Come the echoes back to me,

   O Absalom, my son! 

Somewhere at every hour

The watchman on the tower

Looks forth, and sees the fleet

Approach of the hurrying feet

Of messengers, that bear

The tidings of despair.

   O Absalom, my son! 

He goes forth from the door

Who shall return no more.

With him our joy departs;

The light goes out in our hearts;

In the Chamber over the Gate

We sit disconsolate.

   O Absalom, my son! 

That 't is a common grief

Bringeth but slight relief;

Ours is the bitterest loss,

Ours is the heaviest cross;

And forever the cry will be

"Would God I had died for thee,

   O Absalom, my son!"

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ultima Thule, pub. 1880)

Written to Reverend William Mercer Green with a letter of condolence at the death of Rev. Green’s son to yellow fever in 1878. (USC, University Library)

http://mdah.state.ms.us/oldcap/hall-of-fame.php

William Green became the first Episcopal bishop of Mississippi in 1849. He was a founder of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, and served as its chancellor from 1867 until his death.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Mercer_Green

William Mercer Green (May 2, 1798 – February 13, 1887) was the first Episcopal bishop of Mississippi.
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https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/green-william-mercer

William Mercer Green, first Protestant Episcopal bishop of Mississippi, was born in Wilmington. His father was Lieutenant William Green, a patriot of the American Revolution, whose early death placed responsibility for his son's care upon his widow, Mary Bradley Green. His grandfather, Dr. Samuel Green, formerly of Liverpool, had left specific directions regarding the education of his progeny. With these ideas his Quaker mother was in complete accord. Her mother had been the former Elizabeth Sharpless, a birthright Quaker; her father, Richard Bradley, also a Friend, had come from Kendal, England. Young William Green was graduated from The University of North Carolina in 1818, yielding in honors only to his classmate and friend, James Knox Polk.

Greatly influenced by an account of Bishop George Berkeley's life, he turned to the study of theology. He valued the precepts of bishops John Henry Hobart and John Stark Ravenscroft, always calling himself "a Prayer Book churchman." On 29 Apr. 1821 Green received deacon's orders from Bishop Richard Channing Moore in Christ Church, Raleigh, and on 20 Apr. 1823 he was ordained a priest by Bishop Moore in St. James's Church, Wilmington. In the latter year he nominated the Diocese of North Carolina's first bishop, John Stark Ravenscroft. Green served first in St. John's Parish, Williamsborough, and then as rector of Emmanuel Church in Warrenton. In 1825 he went to St. Matthew's in Hillsborough, where he also directed the work of the Hillsborough Female Seminary. Two years later he returned to his alma mater as chaplain and professor of belles lettres. Dissatisfied that students had to attend college chapel services regardless of their denominational preference, he was determined to provide a place for Episcopalians to worship. His arduous labors resulted in his founding the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. Its completion was achieved on the eve of his being called to Mississippi as the state's first Protestant Episcopal bishop. There he was consecrated on 24 Feb. 1850 in St. Andrew's Church, Jackson. His responsibility included not only the care of the whole diocese but also, for two years, pastoral duties in Trinity Parish, Natchez. By his thirtieth year of active service in the diocese, the number of parishes had increased from ten to fifty-one; forty-one new churches had been built and the training of clergy fostered regardless of race. An assistant was not elected until the thirty-third year of his episcopate.

Green worked zealously to promote the establishment of training schools for clergy and was one of the founders of an institution, at Sewanee, Tenn., which he named the "University of the South." After becoming chancellor of that university in 1866, he built on its domain a residence that he called "Kendal" for his grandfather's home. Here he enjoyed the visits of his close friend and parishioner, Jefferson Davis. In North Carolina Green and his family had known the ravages of war, pestilence, and fire, which all fell to their lot again in Mississippi. After the tragic death of his son, the Reverend Duncan Cameron Green, during Greenville's yellow fever epidemic in 1878, the poet Longfellow wrote "The Chamber Over the Gate" and sent it with a letter of condolence to Bishop Green whom he had met.

In addition to his pastoral and diocesan work, Green was the author of Memoir of Bishop Ravenscroft (1830) and Memoir of the Rt. Rev. James Hervey Otey (1885). He received the D.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1845 and the LL.D. degree from The University of North Carolina in 1881.

On 22 Dec. 1818, he married Sally Williams Sneed of Williamsborough, N.C. Widowed in 1832, he married Charlotte Isabella Fleming of Pittsboro on 18 Dec. 1835. Of his thirteen children, several followed the clerical, medical, or professional vocations of their forefathers. After his death at his Sewanee home, Green was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Jackson, Miss. He was succeeded by Hugh Miller Thompson, who had become his assistant in 1883. A portrait of Bishop Green was painted by Helen Frances Colburn of Washington City.