Albert Gorton Greene (February 10, 1802 – January 3, 1868) was an American judge and poet.
Biography
Albert Gorton Greene was born in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
on February 10, 1802.
Graduating from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
in 1820, Greene was admitted to the bar of
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
in 1823. In 1832 he was elected clerk of the City Council and clerk of the Municipal Court. He was Judge of the Municipal Court from 1858 to 1867, when he retired from ill-health to live with his daughter in Cleveland, Ohio. He is said to have drafted Rhode Island's original school bill.
[''Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American biography'', 6 vols, 1888]
In 1833 he published a quarterly, the ''Providence Literary Journal'', but discontinued it after a year.
[Drake, F. S., ''Dictionary of American biography'', 1870] He helped to found the
Providence Athenaeum
The Providence Athenaeum is an independent, member-supported subscription library in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. The building is open to the public, but only members can check out items from the collection.
The ...
and the
Rhode Island Historical Society
The Rhode Island Historical Society is a privately endowed membership organization, founded in 1822, dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing the history of Rhode Island. Its offices are located in Providence, Rhode Island.
History
Found ...
, of which he was president from 1854 until his death.
His library of 20,000 volumes included a collection of American poetry which eventually passed to Brown University, where it is known as the Harris Collection.
He wrote several popular poems, including the humorous poem "Old Grimes", "The Militia Muster", 'Adelheid", "The Baron's Last Banquet", and "Canonchet".
Family life
Greene was the son of
John Holden and Elizabeth (Beverly) Greene. At the time of his birth, his father was at the beginning of a fifty-year career as an architect.
[Louise Brownell Clarke, ''The Greenes of Rhode Island, with Historical Records of English Ancestry, 1534-1902, Complied from the Mss. of Major-General George Sears Greene, U. S. V.'' (New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1903)] In 1824 he married Mary Ann Clifford of Providence.
[ Their daughter, Arazelia, married US Senator ]Charles Collins Van Zandt
Charles Collins Van Zandt (August 10, 1830 – June 4, 1894) was the 34th Governor of Rhode Island.
Early life
He was born in Newport, Rhode Island. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, class of 1851. He then studied law ...
.
Greene died in Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
on January 3, 1868.
Works
* ''Recollections of the Jersey prison-ship; taken, and prepared for publication, from the original manuscript of the late Captain Thomas Dring'', 1829
* ''Old Grimes'', 1867
References
External links
*
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1802 births
1868 deaths
19th-century American poets
American male poets
American judges
Rhode Island lawyers
Poets from Rhode Island
19th-century American male writers
19th-century American judges
19th-century American lawyers
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