Butte County
Biographies
COLONEL ROBERT MOORE GREEN
COLONEL ROBERT MOORE GREEN.—The romance
of history, the charm of personal narrative and the most helpful suggestions
deducible from actual experience are found in the interesting chapters in the
life of Col. Robert Green and his distinguished ancestors. He was born in Cambridge,
Guernsey County, Ohio,
on June 17, 1846, the son of Dr. Milton Green, who came of a long and honorable
line of English descent. His great-grandfather was Richard G. Green, the
son of Allen and Alcinda (Graham Green, the father
being a planter, of Ellicott Mills, now Ellicott City,
Md.
The
Rev. Allen Green after graduating from college became a preacher in the
Methodist Episcopal Church; and having inherited slaves from his father, he gave
them their freedom. When he moved to Barnesville
Belmont County, Ohio, he bought
and conducted a farm; and on his property the first cement made in that section
was manufactured, the farm being now known as the
Parker place.
Several
members of the Green family have become more or less noted. Israel Green,
who died at Mount Vernon, Ohio, was
a druggist at Findlay, in Hancock
County, of that state; and
associated with his apothecary shop is an incident of national historical
significance. When Lincoln and Douglas, in 1858, concluded their great
debates in Illinois, Mr. Green read the speeches in the
newspapers, and being greatly impressed by Lincoln’s
personality, as described therein, and by what he had said, he wrote a letter
to the Cincinnati Gazette telling just how the matter appealed to
him. This communication was the first of any kind known to have been
published in the United States
proposing the name of Abraham Lincoln for president of the United
States, and for that reason has given the writer a unique position
in our national annals. It was written on November 6, 1858, in Israel
Green’s drug store, by Israel Green, and published in the Gazette on the tenth
of the month. Israel Green made an autograph copy of the letter as it
appeared in the newspaper, and it is still preserved by his nephew, Col. Robert
Green, who prizes it as an historical keepsake.
The
same Israel Green assisted in organizing the Republican party
in Ohio, on June 17, 1854, being a delegate from Morgan
County, and later serving as a delegate from the
congressional district embracing Muskingum, Washington
and Morgan Counties,
to the memorable Philadelphia
national Convention, on June 7, 1856. He then voted for the nomination of Fremont
as the first president of the young and vigorous Republican party,
and the masterly speeches of Lincoln
convinced him that the latter was the very man the Republican party should
nominate in 1860. As a leader high in the councils of the party, Israel
Green was a close friend of General Morgan, Frank Hurd,
and General Banning.
Israel Green’s only sister, Sarah, was Mrs. Richard Hatton,
the wife of a prominent Ohio Journalist who once edited the Guernsey Times at Cambridge,
and later the Cadiz Republican, and when he removed to Mount
Pleasant, Iowa, he ran the
Mount Pleasant Journal. Richard Hatton had a son Frank, who was a captain
in the Civil War, and who became editor of the Burlington Hawkeye when John
Burdette was manager and Bob Burdette was the funny man. Frank Hatton
became Postmaster General of the United States
under President Arthur, and while in the capital established the Washington
Post, still among the prominent dailies.
Another
brother, Davis Green, was a judge at Marietta, Ohio,
and became State Senator.
Dr.
Milton Green, who was born at Ellicott City, Md.,
died in 1856, after an arduous life as a physician at Cambridge,
Ohio, and after considerable activity in
politics. His wife, who had been Susan Moore, was a native of Guernsey
County, and died in 1846. She
was the daughter of Gen. Robert B. Moore and Catherine (Gomber)
Moore, and enjoyed an enviable position in Guernsey on
account of the associations of her father with the history of that
county. For eight years he was the county auditor, and he was also a
member of the Ohio legislature, and while there, in the
winter of 1839-40, he was instrumental in having a law passed declaring Wills
Creek a navigable stream from the mouth to Cambridge. At
that time, General Moore was largely engaged in the manufacture of flour at the
old Gomber Mill, and marketed his product by means of
flat or keel boats floated down Wills Creek at flood tide. He was a
Forty-niner in California, and associated with Judge Pacificus Ord and James L. Henshaw, he purchased the Fernandez Rancho, a Spanish grant
on the Feather River.
In
1850, General Moore returned to Cambridge and settled up
his business, and having married, as a second wife, Miss Jane Cochran, he set
out for the Golden State
with a part of his family. In 1854, two of his sons,
Andrew B. And Jacob G., who had accompanied their father to California
in 1849, returned to Ohio to
settle up the unfinished business, and gathering together the remainder of the
family they made their way across the plains. An older sister of Colonel
Green, Kate, was the wife of Samuel J. McMahon, a leading banker for over fifty
years at Cambridge.
Brought
up in the Cambridge public schools,
Robert Moore Green enlisted in the Union Army, in May, 1862, joining Company A
of the Eighty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He entered as a private when
he was about fifteen, and before he was sixteen he was appointed a
corporal. For a while with his regiment, he did guard duty at Camp
Chase, Columbus, Ohio,
and in 1862, went with his regiment into Kentucky,
and on their return he was mustered out and he returned home and resumed his
studies again. Early in 1864, however, he reenlisted, this time as a
member of the United States Signal Corps, and was stationed for some time at Georgetown,
D. C. Then he was sent to Newbern, N. C., and placed
in charge of the News Rood signal station; and when Sherman’s
army passed along he joined the latter and assisted in giving battle at Kinston,
Bentonville and Goldsboro, N. C. Later
he directed a signal station on the Capitol at Raleigh,
and was there when Lincoln was assassinated, and he was
still there at the review of Sherman’s army at Raleigh.
On
his way to Georgetown Colonel Green
stopped at Fortress Monroe, and he was there when they were fixing up a cell
for the reception of Jeff Davis. Going on to Washington,
he was in that city during the Grand Review. He also saw some of the
oddities of everyday life. For example, on the day when Sherman’s army
passed in review Mrs. Custer distributed red neckties among all of
Custer’s cavalry, and General Custer, who was to become so famous in his
campaign against the Indians, rode by on a big chestnut stallion. As he
was about to salute his horse became unmanageable and broke, turning to the
rear; however, General Custer soon got him in hand and rode by the reviewing
stand and gave his salute. In 1865, Colonel Green was mustered out and
honorably discharged.
As
a result of his active service in the United States Signal Corps, Colonel Green
has been for years a member of the National Signal Corps Association, and has acted
as vice-president of the organization. In 1915, he attended the meeting at
Georgetown Heights,
and once again signaled as in earlier and more strenuous days. Returning
to Cambridge after the war, he entered Mount
Union College,
near Alliance, Ohio.
His
health failing, however, he gave up study, and having had some experience in a
drug store before he entered the army, and still more valuable experience in
military hospitals and the apothecary’s stores there, he now entered the
service of Israel Green at Mount Vernon, Ohio,
where he remained several years. After that he came to Cambridge,
Ohio, and engaged in the drug business.
In
that city, Colonel Green and Miss Laura Haynes were married, June 11,
1868. The bride was a native of Guernsey county, born June 17, 1848, and
the daughter of Dr. Vincent Haynes, a prominent physician of Cambridge,
and afterwards an attorney at law. Colonel and Mrs. Green had one child,
Anna Laura, who died at the age of twelve and a half. Colonel Green
continued in the drug business there until 1880, when on account of his wife’s
health, he came to California, the decision and choice having been affected by
the fact that Grandfather R. B. Moore had crossed the plains as a member of an
ox-team train in 1849, and had come to own a part of the Fernandez grant, lying
between Oroville and Biggs, on the Feather River. He was a stockman, and
one of his sons, having returned to Ohio,
brought a herd of cattle across the plains to Oroville. The mother’s only
sister, Catherine, had married Dr. James Green, a brother of Dr. Milton Green,
under whom he studied medicine, and she is the mother of Louis Lincoln Green,
cashier of the Rideout-Smith Bank of Oroville, and
the mother of Judge Milton J. Green, of San Francisco. The grandfather
died in Oroville, and Robert Alexander Moore of that town is the only one
living.
Locating
here, therefore, partly through relatives, Colonel Green found, after
journeying through much of the State of California,
that he had found the one place favorable to his wife for the improvement of
her health; and here he remained. Colonel Green continued in the drug
business until impaired health led him to retire in 1913. While visiting
an aunt in Oroville, he had been impressed with the town and particularly with
the corner of Bird and Huntoon Streets where there
was a lumber yard, and he determined some day to purchase the property if he
could. While he was in the drug business, he was able to fulfill his wish,
and there he built the Green Building
and moved his store into it. He still owns the block, and has added to the
original building a two-story concrete structure. He has also built here
ten storerooms and a residence, and he was one of the organizers of the
Oroville Citrus Association that set out the first commercial orange orchards
in Oroville. In Oroville, he organized the Albertine
Medicine Company, which manufactured a line of proprietary medicines and put
them on the market. He was on the first board of directors of the
Sacramento Valley Development Association. He was one of the commissioners
of the Mechanics’ Fair, in San Francisco, in 1893-1894,
and with two others, was superintendent of the Sacramento
Valley Building
and managed the exhibit.
Since
the Civil War, Colonel Green has been eminent at the camp-fires of the Grand
Army of the Republic. He has been Post Commander of W. T. Sherman Post,
No. 96, at Oroville, and Past Vice Commander of the
Department for "California and Nevada,
having officiated with the rank of a Colonel. He has attended nearly all
of the great national encampments, and is one of the really well-known G. A. R.
men in the United States. Gen.
R. B. Brown, of Zanesville, Ohio;
Maj. Thomas W. Evans, the banker of St. Joseph, Mo.,
and the Colonel were called the three old army chums; they met for the last
time at Brown’s house at Zanesville. General
Brown died since.
Colonel
Green was one of the first to help organize the Blue and the Gray at Marietta,
Ohio, fifty years ago, and then reorganized it at the National Encampment, held
at St. Louis, Mo., at the time of the Exposition in 1904. Afterward, when
Colonel Green was on his way to attend the G. A. R. Encampment at Chattanooga,
Tenn., on his arrival at New
Orleans, he was greeted by the local Confederate
Corps, who came in a body to the train to meet him and his party and give him
welcome. This is the first instance where a Confederate body had ever come
to meet and welcome a Grand Army delegation.
At the state encampment at Fresno, Colonel Green succeeded
in passing a resolution making the Sons of Veterans the official escort for the
Department of California and Nevada, and the next year at the National
encampment at Rochester, N. Y., he presented and secured the passage of a
resolution making the Sons of Veterans the official escort for the G. A. R., so
he has rendered valuable service to those both within the without the Sons of
Veterans’ Association.
In
civil life and commercial ventures, Colonel Green has also served his adopted
state. He was sent as a special delegate to the St. Louis Exposition, and
there had charge of the Sacramento Valley
exhibits; and being active and wide-awake, he investigated while there the
conditions of corn, peas and rice-growing, and on his
return made a special report covering the field of research. Opponents
thought it might be too cold to try the experiment, but years later a
government expert justified his conclusion, and showed that what was eventually
accomplished might have been introduced years before. As a very active and
progressive member of the Chamber of Commerce, Colonel Green has done much for
the development of this part of the state. He was one of the committee,
for example, to get the shops of the Western Pacific Railroad Company located
at Oroville, and he obtained for them a free site.
Fraternally,
Colonel Green has been more than usually active. He was made a Mason at Cambridge,
Ohio, and is now a member of the Oroville Lodge, No.
103, F. & A. M.; he was exalted to the Royal Arch in Cambridge Chapter; was
Knighted in Oroville Commandery,
No. 5, K. T., and is a life member of Islam Temple,
A. A. O. N. M. S., in San Francisco. He
is a charter member of the Masonic Club of San Francisco, having headquarters
in the Palace Hotel. Always an active and prominent Republican, Colonel
Green is an honorary member of the Union League Club, in San
Francisco. In religious observance, he prefers
the worship of the Congregational Church. Mr. and Mrs. Green celebrated
their golden wedding anniversary in Oakland,
June 11, 1918.
Transcribed 12-1-07
Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 539-545, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2007 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
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