A Biographical Sketch of Some Early Greens

1. Preface

Using modern tools we have attempted to uncover the past. Our goal was to discover the history of my great-grandfather, August Fingleman. The goal has so far eluded us, but in it's quest Jennifer and I have found much information about the family of Florence Green, wife of August Fingleman. And at times, with eyes tired from peering at microfilm records or blurry from speeding around the Internet, the past has come alive for us. The one hundred and fifty years that separates us from the subjects of our research has seemed to dissolve into mist.

The beginning was slow. We started with knowledge and folklore passed down through the Fingleman family by word of mouth, along with a significant amount of information gathered and shared with us by my cousin Clinton. Then we were stuck. A trip or two to genealogy libraries seemed to show people losing their eyesight as they grew old while poring over books and microfilm records. The task seemed impossible. Then one day as I was using a U.S. telephone directory on the Internet, I typed in "fingleman" and clicked the search button. I was surprised to find 34 telephone listings for people named Fingleman!

A little while and a few "search engines" later, I was beginning to be encouraged by the research possibilities offered by the modern information age. However, the Internet is still young. Its store of information grows largely because of individual efforts motivated by the desire to share knowledge. As powerful as this motivation may be, it is still not as powerful as the corporate profit motivation. Therefore, I decided to spend a few dollars for a "family tree" software package that included a large amount of genealogical information from various sources on CD-ROMS. The amount of information I brought home from the store was immense - many times more words than written by Shakespeare, Longfellow, Whitman and all the great literary authors of the English language together. Of course, most of this vast amount of information was of no interest to us at all. However, that is why we have computers and software. Within a few minutes after opening the package at home, Jennifer and I knew much more about the Green family than we had anticipated.

You see, we were the beneficiaries of another Green family descendant, whose name we still do not know. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to document the descendants of Richard Green, M.D., born about 1740 in Ireland. Among this data, the computer located some familiar names, and many more names that were unfamiliar but have since become part of the family. With this new information, along with numerous trips to the library and hours of research on the Internet, the past has come alive for us. We would like to share some of the information with you. We hope you can share some of the experiences it has given us.

2. The Yankee Connection

As I said before, Richard Green, M.D., was born about 1740 in Ireland. In 1765, he lived in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, just a few miles north of the Maryland border and the Mason-Dixon Line. Dr. Green was married, but we have not found the name of his wife. We did find, however, the name of his son born about 1765 in Bedford County, Richard M. Green.

Richard M. Green had four children born in Bedford County - John, Mary, Philip and Elizabeth. Then, just before the centennial year 1800, he took his family on a journey of no return - a journey to the unknown world beyond the United States - a journey to Louisiana.

3. Louisiana

In 1803, the United States purchased the vast Louisiana Territory from France. Much larger than the present-day state of Louisiana, the Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Gulf of Mexico nearly to Canada. Bordered by the Mississippi River on the east, the western boundary followed the Sabine and Red Rivers, then extended north along the continental divide into present-day Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The land west of the Louisiana Territory belonged to Mexico, including the area that is now Texas.

For many years after 1803 the Louisiana Territory remained largely uncharted and mysterious. It was inhabited principally by Indians and the descendants of early French and Spanish explorers. However, even before the Louisiana Purchase, Richard M. Green had started his own journey of discovery. On New Year's Day of the new century, Richard's fifth child, a son named Reason Green, was born in Natchez, an old French settlement on the Mississippi River that now lies in the state of Mississippi.

Richard's next child, a daughter name Lizzie, was born in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana in 1804, just across the river from Natchez. At about the same time the famous American explorers Lewis and Clark began their expedition to explore and chart the Louisiana Territory. In 1810, another son, Benjamin Modelle Green, was born a few miles south in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. We found records indicating that Richard and his oldest son John were farmers in 1810. Cotton and sugar cane were the principal crops in this area.

4. Texas

Perhaps no figure in the Green family of the early 19th century is as intriguing as Reason, if only because there are more records of his life than of the other Greens of that time. His story begins to take shape in 1822 when he married Martha Ann Rodgers and took his new bride south and west, to the Mexican territory known as Texas. Reason called upon skills he may have learned as a boy on the Mississippi to cross the Sabine River where the city of Orange, Texas is today. Here he established a settlement that became known as Green's Bluff. Reason operated a ferry at Green's Bluff for some time, and the City of Orange recognizes him as their founder. However, his aspirations lay to the west, even farther from his father, brothers and sisters who stayed behind in Louisiana.

In 1829, mostly Indians populated Southeast Texas. Only a few scattered towns existed, such as Velasco, San Felipe, Harrisburg, Anahuac and Liberty. That year Reason and Martha had a son whom they named Stephen, born in a crude military outpost at Bolivar Point, Texas. Bolivar Point is one of Jennifer's and my favorite places. Her family also called the peninsula home during the early 19th Century. The past came alive for us as we recalled the many times we stood on the point looking across the bay to Galveston Island. Perhaps in 1829 Reason and Martha looked across the Bolivar Straits also, and decided it was too much for a Mississippi River boatman. Three years later, their second son, John Jefferson Green, was born in Liberty, followed in 1835 by a daughter, Hannah Jane Green.

During the next few years, other Greens followed Reason and Martha from Louisiana to Texas. Perhaps the first were Reason's younger brother Benjamin Modelle Green and his wife Cynthia, whose first child, John J. Green, was born in Liberty County in 1834. We know that Reason's older sister Elizabeth was in Texas by 1836 with her husband William Comstock and daughter Mary Ann. His older brother John Green came with his family from Louisiana to Liberty between 1852 and 1854.

Liberty is one of the oldest settlements in Texas, first settled by early Spanish explorers. By 1832 Liberty was among the few established towns in southeast Texas. According to an account written years later by another of Reason's sons, Freeman D. Green, Reason again called on his river skills and established a ferry across the Trinity River west of Liberty. Here he founded another settlement that was at first called Green's Ferry. This settlement later became known as West Liberty, and finally, after Reason's death, as Dayton.

5. Unsettled Times

The 1830's were a turbulent time in the Mexican territory called Texas. The inhabitants resisted what they felt to be oppressive Mexican rule. The Mexican government, led by the infamous dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was determined to squash the resistance. In 1835, Texans formed a revolutionary government and declared their independence from Mexico. However, Santa Anna had other ideas. He led a large army north across the Rio Grande intent upon eliminating all resistance no matter what the cost. In March of 1836, a Texan force commanded by William Barrett Travis succumbed after a valiant defense effort at the Alamo mission in San Antonio de Bexar. Two weeks later, a larger Texan force led by William Fannin surrendered to the Mexican army at Goliad, Texas. Santa Anna subsequently massacred Fannin and his men. Among the casualties at Goliad was William Comstock, husband of Reason's sister Elizabeth Green and father of 12 year old Mary Ann Comstock.

Just before Easter in April 1836, as Santa Anna pushed on through Texas to put an end to the rebellion, General Sam Houston laid his final plans to confront Santa Anna in a decisive battle east of Harrisburg. Knowing that the stakes were very high, Houston desired to remove women and children living in the east Texas settlements from harm's way. He called upon a member of the army of The Republic of Texas named Reason Green to use his skills to take them across the Sabine River into Louisiana. Thus, Reason did not participate in the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto beside his brother Benjamin Modelle Green. But he played his part, as did Benjamin, and in the aftermath the new Republic of Texas rewarded him with grants of three leagues of land. One of the grants was in north Liberty County, and descendants of the Green family still occupy this land. The other grants were in Williamson County north of Austin and in Callahan County east of present-day Abilene, Texas.

After San Jacinto Reason and Martha had two more children. Freeman D. Green was born in 1837, but not in Liberty according to his own account. Freeman wrote that he was born in Green's Bluff, the Sabine River settlement that later became Orange, Texas. Perhaps Reason and Martha lingered there after his ferry detail for General Houston. However, they did return to Liberty County, and their youngest son Reason Jr. was born there in 1843. Reason continued to serve the Republic of Texas after San Jacinto, and in 1842, he was a captain in the Republic of Texas Militia.

The following notice, published by Reason in the Houston Morning Star newspaper on September 21, 1844, gives a sense of the times and the frontier character of Texas and it's inhabitants:

"Premeditated Murder--Committed on the 8th inst., by one John ARNOLD on Wm. STEPHENSON, a citizen of West Liberty. The said ARNOLD is about 30 years of age, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches high, dark complexion, a large Roman nose, quick and fine spoken. It is believed that ARNOLD is not his name, it is supposed his name is GORMOND. A reasonable reward will be paid to anyone who will apprehend the said ARNOLD. Reason GREEN. 9/21/1844:4"

6. Florence Green

None of the Green family information Jennifer and I had found mentioned Florence Green. However, we did have a clue from an 1880 census record discovered by Clinton. The census record showed that Florence P. and August Fingleman lived in Refugio, Texas in 1880 with three young children, daughter Jessie and sons Charles and Green Fingleman. August B. Fingleman would be born three months after this census was taken. Adjacent to the Finglemans lived a man named John L. Green, age 48, with his wife Aurelia, a 10 year old daughter named Martha J. Green, and three adult sons, Benjamin L., Sam L. and Wood C. Green. The Green family history we had found included a John L. Green born in Louisiana in 1832, the son of Reason's oldest brother John. We believed that this man could be Florence's father. But the family history we had did not indicate the names of John L. Green's wife and children, so we could not be sure.

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Then one day in the public library in Marietta, Georgia, we found the link. On the 1860 Liberty County Census we found John L. Green living with his wife and four children: F.P. Green (female), Benjamin Green, S.L. Green (male) and W.C. Green (male). John L.'s father John Green lived in the same house, and the ages of all matched those on the 1880 census. Living next door was Reason Green with his 18-year-old son Reason Jr. So Florence was the granddaughter of Reason's brother John Green, and the great-great granddaughter of Dr. Richard Green of Ireland and Bedford County, Pennsylvania. The past came alive for us again.

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But where did Florence meet August Fingleman and where did they marry? It seems very likely that they met in Texas, since Florence lived in Liberty County as early as age eight. But so far, we have not been able to find any records of the John L. Green family between 1860 and 1880. We know that several of the Greens left Liberty County for points west during these years. Reason's sons Freeman and John Jefferson Green lived with their families in Victoria, Texas in 1870. John Jefferson Green died in Del Rio, Texas and Freeman died in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Benjamin Modelle Green's son Francis Marion Green lived the last years of his life in Coke County in west Texas. Were John L. Green and family moving west when Florence met August Fingleman? And what became of Florence's father, mother, brothers and sister? To date we have found no additional information about them.

Of course we know that August and Florence returned to Liberty County with their children years later, when our grandfather August B. Fingleman was a boy. Clinton recalls August B.'s tales of the trip by train. An 1897 Railroad Commissioners' Map of Texas shows the route they must have taken, through towns like Victoria, Edna, Wharton, Richmond, Houston and Crosby. Once again the past came alive.

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The stories about August Fingleman include accounts of a shipwreck off the Texas coast when August was a young man. Some accounts suggest that he was still a boy and that his parents were killed in the shipwreck. One thing is certain - he came to this country by ship, and if the ship's destination was Texas, it was probably headed for either Galveston or Indianola. In the 1870's, Indianola rivaled Galveston as the primary seaport on the Texas coast. Indianola was on Matagorda Bay, about forty miles east of Refugio. It was a principal port of entry for German immigrants. But the treacherous waters of Matagorda Bay were the scene of countless shipwrecks and a primary reason that Galveston finally won the battle for prominence.

We found one more intriguing piece of information on the Internet and verified it on microfilmed census records. In 1850, a "Mrs. Fingleman" lived in New Orleans. She was 37 years old and lived with six other people in what seems to have been a boarding house. August Fingleman would have been an infant at this time. What, if any, is the relationship?

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Perhaps in days to come, as more historical records become available on the Internet, a few clicks of the mouse may uncover the missing information. Until then, we will keep looking. Those moments when the past comes alive brighten the present and foretell a cheerful future.