My 9x great grandfather was once the Deputy Governor of Rhode Island colony, his great grandson went on to be the second governor of the state of Rhode Island, serving during the American Revolution, from 4 May 1778 to 3 May 1786.
Deputy Governor John Greene was born 15 August 1620 in Salisbury County WIltshire England to parents Dr. John Greene (surgeon) and Joanne Charity Tattershall. Johanne, my 10x great grandmother, came from a family of landed gentry in Lancashire. Her father, Richard Tattershall de Risley once owned the land where the manor house known as “The Holme” was converted from wood to stone between 1603 and 1717. The house fell to disrepair, arson and is now apartments, but was once a fine manor house.
Dr. John Greene, my 10x great grandfather, was a surgeon born in County Dorset, son of the Lord Bowridge, Sir Richard “The Younger” Grene. He and Joanne had 7 children in England between 1620 and 1708, John Jr. being the eldest. The children were baptized at St. Thomas’s Church in Salisbury, the current home of the 1214 Magna Carta.
The family departed for America in the ship James April 3,1635. Joanne died the very first year they were in the country, her youngest only two years old. He remarried a widow, Alice Daniels soon after. They first settled in Salem before moving on to Providence, Rhode Island where he was the first medical professional in the area.
John was one of the first six colonists to receive “home lots” in Providence Rhode Island. In 1642 he purchased 700 acres of land from a chief of the Narragansett people sachem Miantonomi six miles sourth of the settlement of Pawtuxet. It was called Occupasuetuxet and later known as “Greene’s Hold”. In 1782 John Brown purchased it, calling it Spring Green and that is what it is know as to this day.
The Greenes of Rhode Island (compiled from the manuscript of Major-General George Sears Greene), published in 1903, says John Greene “was well respected by his contemporaries in Providence. Roger Williams, in 1637 wrote, “… Mr. Greene here is peaceable, a peacemaker, and a lover of all English that visit us.”
John Greene joined with 10 others, later knows as the Gortonites in the “Showamet Purchase of 1642” purchasing a tract of land that was four miles wide and extended for about 20 miles west from Narragansett Bay. This is now the towns of Warwick, West Warwick and Coventry. The Massachusetts Bay Colony invaded the Showamet colony with forty mounted and armed men to arrest the men and the women fled to the woods and nearby islands. It’s said Alice Daniels Greene died from “fright and exposure”, her husband the surgeon arrived too late to tend to her. John wasn’t captured with the other men. Those that were captured were whipped, shackled and sentenced to a year of hard labor. They were supposed to be banished from the colonies. John was placed on a wanted list, but not arrested. He was free to build relationships with the Narragansett Indians and then when the Gortonites were released he helped plan a petition to Parliament, sailing to England and obtaining a royal decree from the Earl of Warwick for the Showamet colony.
John the surgeon while in England in 1644 married a third time, his wife only known as “Phillip” returned to Rhode Island with him in 1646. He served on the Warwick town council in 1647 and 1648, was the Warwick Deputy to the Rhode Island General Court from 1649 to 1657, and was named one of the Warwick freeman on a 1655 list of freemen. He was the magistrate for the Rhode Island General Court of Trials in March 1656. He was commissioner of Warwich 1654-57 and one of 12 original members of the First Baptist Church there. He died sometime between 28 December 1658 when he wrote his will, and 7 January 1659 when it was enacted.
Lt. Governor John Greene, my 9x great grandfather, married Anne Almy about 1648 and they had eleven children together between 1649 and 1670. In 1651 he and three others built a corn mill in Warwick Rhode Island. He was “General Recorder” for the town 1652-54, Commissioner from 1652-1663, Deputy for Newport to the Rhode Island General Court for many sessions between 1679 and 1690, General Solicitor in 1655, Attorney General in 1657-1660, Warden in 1658, Assistant in 1660- 1673 and several years until 1696. He received the commission of Captain in 1664 and “Major of the Main” 1683-1696
In June of 1670 he traveled to England to defend the Rhode Island Island charter in front of the King of England. This led to him being appointed to the Governor’s Council and becoming an agent for Rhode Island to the King of England from 1685-87. And then was Deputy Governor of Rhode Island from 1690-1700. in 1700 at the age of 80 he refused an eleventh term. He inherited his father’s farm and is buried there.
Descendants
Through his youngest son Samuel, he was a grandfather of William Greene Sr., who served for 11 one-year terms as a governor of the colony, and a great-grandfather of William Greene Jr., who was a governor of the State of Rhode Island.
Greene is also an ancestor of United States President Warren G. Harding, as well as inventor Thomas A. Edison, and actor John Wayne.
