Manuscript Group 221, Calvin Green (1765-1847), Farmer Papers, 1790-1846

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Manuscript Group 221, Calvin Green (1765-1847), Farmer

Papers, 1790-1846, 0.3 linear feet / 2 volumes

Call Number: MG 221

• Summary

• Biographical
  Note

• Provenance
  Note

• Scope
  and Content Note

• Related
  Collections

• Folder List

Summary:

Includes Calvin Green’s autobiography,
1765-1845, and a diary, 1790-1844.  He has appended to the diary various
autobiographical notes, and transcribed records for the First Presbyterian
Church in Hanover Township, Morris County, 1747-1846.  Calvin Green, a
farmer, was the son of Rev. Jacob Green (1722-1790) and a brother of Ashbel
Green (1762-1848).

Biographical Note:

Calvin Green was born on July 25, 1765 in Hanover, Morris County, New Jersey.
Green’s father, the Harvard educated Rev. Jacob Green (1722-1790), was the minister
of the First Presbyterian Church of Hanover Township and a founder of a Latin academy
there.  Although Calvin did not attend his father’s school, as did his brother Ashbel
(1762-1848), he was literate and able to read the Bible by the age of 5.

Too young to fight in the Revolutionary War like his older brother Pierson, Calvin
spent his early years helping his father on the family’s farm.  Rev. Green encouraged
his son to learn a trade and, at the age of 12, Calvin began studying shoemaking and
tanning with a Hanover tradesman named John Smithson.  Leatherwork did not appeal to Green
however and he spent much of his apprenticeship working in the fields on Smithson’s
farm. Green eventually gave up the leather trade in 1794 and concentrated solely on
farming and tending to livestock.

In 1787 Green married Hannah Beach (1768-1847) with whom he had six children: Nancy
(1788-1813), Jacob (b. 1790), Gabriel (b. 1794), Willis (b. 1802), John Calvin
(1805-1807), and Elizabeth (1809-1838).  He died in Hanover on February 3, 1847.

Sources:

“Calvin Green’s ‘Diary’ The Life Of Calvin Green.”
N.J.
Historical Society Proceedings. Volume 69, 1951:
pages 115-136.

Provenance Note:

The collection was a gift of Calvin Green’s great-granddaughters, Mrs. Laura Green
Dorer and Miss Emma J. Green of West Caldwell, New Jersey.

Scope and Content Note:

The collection consists of a handwritten autobiography dating from 1765-1846, a diary
dating from 1790-1844, and a typescript index of the diary’s contents.
In addition to
providing a yearly account of Green’s life from early childhood until 1846, the
autobiography discusses the tanning and shoemaking trade, farming, historical events
(example: the 1802 burning of the college at Princeton), his father’s Latin academy,
the hiring of slave labor, the church’s succession of ministers, and deaths and
births in the town.  The diary lists daily events such as biblical readings; the preaching
schedule; town births, deaths, and marriages; and crop and livestock reports.
Appended to
the diary are various autobiographical notes and transcribed records from the First
Presbyterian Church of Hanover Township, Morris County (1747-1846) relating to church
membership and activity. The typescript index of the diary’s contents is organized by
year.

Related Collections:

Manuscript Group 347,
First Presbyterian Church, Hanover, NJ Records

See Farmer’s
papers/records

Folder List:

Processed by Jeff McMillan, August 2000 as part of the “Farm to
City” project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications
and Records Commission.

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