Broersma Family Tree » John Greene (± 1597-1658)

Personal data John Greene 

• He was born about 1597 in England.Source 1
• Immigrated in the year 1635 vanuit Rhode Island, Verenigde Staten.Source 1

  on the ship James

• Profession: surgeon.Source 1
• He died in the year 1658 in Rhode Island, Verenigde Staten.Source 1
• A child of Richard Greene and Mary
• This information was last updated on August 6, 2013.

Household of John Greene

(1) He is married to Joan Tattersall.

They got married on November 4, 1619 at England.Source 1

Child(ren):

1. John Greene  < 1620-1708 
2. Peter Greene  < 1622-????
3. Richard Greene  < 1623-????
4. James Greene  < 1626-????
5. Thomas Greene  < 1628-????
6. Joan Greene  < 1630-????
7. Mary Greene  < 1633-????

(2) He is married to Alice Daniels.

They got married

(3) He is married to Phillipa.

They got married

Notes about John Greene

New England Families genealogical and memorial Vol 4
William Richard Cutter
Pg 1928

John Greene, founder of the Warwick (Rhode Island) branch of the family, was born about 1597, and was the son of Peter Greene, of Aukley Hall, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. The family dates back to the fifteenth century. John Greene sailed from England in the ship "James", April 6, 1635. and arrived in Boston on June 5 of the same year. He was one of the twelve persons to whom Roger Williams deeded land from the Indian sachems Canonicus and Miantoriomi. in 1638, and he was one of the original founders of the town of Warwick. He was one of those who were persecuted on account oftheir dissent from the prevailing religion, and in 1644 he and Samuel Gorton, the great religious agitator, went to England to obtain redress, and in 1646 they returned, having been successful in their efforts. John Greene married, November 4, 1619, Joan Tattersall, and his death occurred in 1658.

New England Families genealogical and memorial Vol 4
William Richard Cutter
Pg 1704

(I) John Greene, of Salisbury, county Wilts, England, sailed from Southampton, England, in the ship "James'' to Boston, in 1635, bringing with him his family. Mr. Greene was probably born at Bowridge Hill, Gillingham, Dorset, where his father, Richard (2), and grandfather, Richard (1) Greene, resided. His great-grandfather was Robert Greene, of Bowridge Hill. He was of Salem, Massachusetts, for a short period, and of Providence in 1637. He was one of the twelve persons to whom Roger Williams deeded land bought of Canonicus and Miantonomo, in 1638. He was one of the twelve original members of the First Baptist Church. In 1643 ne and others purchased a tract of land now called Warwick. He was commissioner during 1654-57; was made a freeman in 1655. John Greene was a surgeon in Salisbury, and there made his first marriage at St. Thomas Church. This was on November 4, 1619, and to Joan Tattersall. His children and the dates of their baptism were:
John, August 15, 1620;
Peter, March 10, 1622;
Richard, March 25, 1623;
James, June 21, 1626;
Thomas, June 4. 1628;
Joan, October 3, 1630;
Mary, May 19, 1633.
He married (second) Alice Daniels, a widow; married (third) Phillipa ---- . His death occurred in 1658. Some of the conspicuous descendants of John Greene, of Warwick, Rhode Island, have been General Nathaniel Greene, of revolutionary fame; John, deputy governor of the colony; William, lieutenant governor and governor of the colony; William (2), chief justice and governor of Rhode Island; Ray Greene, United States senator; and the latter's son, William, lieutenant-governor, and graduate of Brown University ; and General George S. Greene.

New England Families genealogical and memorial Vol 4
William Richard Cutter
Pg 1704

This, the Norwich branch of the Greene family, comes from the Boston branch of the Rhode Island family, descended from John Greene, of Warwick, of that state. John Greene was descended from the family of Greene of Greene's Norton, Northamptonshire, England, which flourished in that county from 1319 until the time of Henry VIII. Sir Henry Greene Knt., lord chief justice of England in 1353, was the head of this family in his time. His younger son, Sir Henry Greene, was beheaded in 1399 for his attachment to the cause of Richard II. Queen Catherine Parr was a member of this family, her mother being Matilda Greene, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Greene, of Greene's Norton. By the marriage of Matilda Greene and her sister Anne, respectively, to Sir Thomas Parr and Baron Vaux, the Northampton estate passed into other families.

A branch of this family, from which the American Greenes are descended, owned and occupied the estate of Bowridge Hill, in Gillingham parish, in Dorsetshire, in the reign of Henry VIII., and so continued until 1635 and after. Many records of births, marriages and deaths of the family appear in the parish records, and various curious wills of theirs are extant. Their old stone house is still standing. The John Greene, of Warwick, Rhode Island, referred to in the foregoing, and who is treated in what follows, was a younger brother of the owner of Bowridge Hill, at the time of his emigration to the American colonies in 1635. From this source came the Greenes under consideration, and their lineage from the American ancestor follows, each generation being designated by a Roman character.

The Greene Family in England and America
pg 38-43

(4.) John Greene, fourth son of Richard3 Greene, of Bowridge Hill, was born in 1597. He resided for some time at Salisbury, in Wiltshire, where, on November 4, 1619, he married, at St. Thomas's Church, Joan Tattershall, who died in 1643, at Newport or at Conanicut. "If she was at Conanicut (as tradition has it), she must have been indebted to the hospitality of the Indians, since Conanicut was sold to William Coddington and others in 1656, thirteen years later, by Caganaquant."

In the Parish Register recording the baptism of his children, he is sometimes called gentleman, and once "Chirurgeon." According to a documerit still preserved in the Rolls Office, at London, Mr. Greene, described as Surgeon, late of Salisbury, together with his wife and children, took passage for New England in the James of London, which sailed from Southampton in April, 1635. This vessel arrived at Boston on the third of June, and Mr. Greene proceeded to Rhode Island and resided at Providence until 1643, when he with twelve others made arrangements for the purchasing of Narraganset from the Indians. His name "does not appear on the Massachusetts Colonial Record in the period intervening between his arrival at Boston and his settlement at Providence;" hence "it is to be presumed that he made no settlement in Boston or elsewhere in Massachusetts; we know, however, that he was at one time in Salem, where he probably was associated with Roger Williams."

The settlement which was made led to hostile aggressions by the Massachusetts authorities, who invaded the plantation, took nearly all the settlers prisoners and subjected them to severe punishment. Mr. Greene's wife sought safety at Conanicut (or Newport), where she died soon after. The following year, Mr. Greene, with other leading men of the plantation, went to England and succeeded in obtabling a just assertion of their right. His troubles with the authorities of the Bay began before the arrival of Samuel Gorton, with whom he was on many subsequent occasions in full sympathy. An account of these bitter controversies cannot here be given, for they extended over many years, and the proceedings of the adverse parties may be regarded in very different lights, according to the point of view or the sympathies of those who read the story.

In Massachusetts, Greene, Gorton, and his companions were regarded, so Captain Edward Johnson tells us in his "Wonder-working Providence," as "full gorged with dreadful and damnable errors ;" they were charged with speaking contemptuously of magistrates, for which Greene was heavily fined and "forbidden this jurisdiction on pain of [further] fine and imprisonment." Even in Khode Island some of the party were viewed with suspicion. Among them were Richard Carder, Randall Holden, and Robert Potter, into whose families some of the Greenes subsequently married, as will be seen below. In 1642/3 those just named were " disfranchised of their privileges and prerogatives, and their names cancelled out of the record."

On the other hand, some who have studied the proceedings of Massachusetts find in John Greene and his companions "that sturdy spirit of freedom which burned in the breasts of so many of onr ancestors ;" in the reply of Greene to the Legislature of the Bay, wherein he charged them with "usurping the power of Christ over the churches and men's consciences," is discovered one of the earliest assertions "of entire and absolute freedom of opinion, in defiance of either secular or ecclesiastical authority."

So far as the questions at issue were theological, they involved powers which the Massachusetts clergy had always exercised with little or no restraint. Opinions which differed from their own they regarded as the rankest heresy; religious toleration was unknown: on the contrary, the people of the Bay, as Chief Justice Story says, "not only tolerated the civil power in the suppression of heresy, but they demanded and enjoined it." Against this doctrine Greene and his companions strenuously protested.

Not only theological but political questions were involved. The claim to the Narraganset country was a disputed one. Greene and his associates held title by the deed of Shawomet to Miantonomoh, of January 12, 1642; that of Massachusetts was founded on a vote of the Commissioners of the United Colonies, which recognized the title to be in Plymouth, but authorized Massachusetts to accept it, in case Plymouth refused it, which she did. Thereupon the authorities of the Bay attempted to drive away their obnoxious neighbors and break up their settlement by force of arms. Greene and his friends regarded this course as tyrannical and a usurpation, and resisted it. The dispute continued for near half a century, during which period Rhode Island claimed the territory was hers by Charter, and Connecticut, by right of conquest. In the end it became a part of Rhode Island. Through the entire struggle " the name of John Greene appears as the undeviating champion of the rights of the latter Colony," for the son of the emigrant, who bore his father's name, followed in his footsteps.

It has been stated that while in England Greene married a second wife, Alice Daniels, whom he brought back with him; but Dr. Henry E. Turner, in a monograph on the Warwick Greenes, says that she was a widow, and was taxed 2s. 6d. in Providence for land held there in 1637 [Col. Rec, I: 15], which was some six years before the death of the first wife. Alice died soon, and he married thirdly, Philippa , who survived him and died March 11, 1687, aged 87. On his return, Mr. Greene fixed his residence at Warwick, the chief town of Narraganset, of which place he was one of the most prominent citizens, and filled the offices of Magistrate and Clerk of the Court.

He made his will on the 28th of December, 1658, which was proved on the 7th day of January following. He was buried by the side of his first wife at Conanicut. His children, all born before he came to New England...

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Timeline John Greene

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