Dr. John Greene

Abt 1594 - 1659  (~ 64 years)

• Name	John Greene  [1, 2]
  Prefix	Dr.
  Birth	Abt 1594	Gillingham, Dorset, England   [3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	Between 28 Dec 1658 and 7 Jan 1659	Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island   [3]
  Alternate death	Jan 1659	Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island   [4]
  Person ID	I18607	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of JTS, Ancestor of LMW
  Last Modified	6 Nov 2021

  
  

  Father	Richard Greene,   b. of Bowridge Hill, Gillingham, Dorset, England
  Family ID	F11571	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Joan Tattershall
  Marriage	4 Nov 1619	St. Thomas, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England   [3, 5]
  Children	+ 1. John Greene,   b. Bef 15 Aug 1620, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England d. 27 Nov 1708, Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island (Age > 88 years) + 2. Thomas Greene,   b. Bef 4 Jun 1628, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England d. 5 Jun 1717, Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island (Age > 89 years) + 3. Mary Greene,   b. Bef 19 May 1633
  Family ID	F11558	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	6 Nov 2021

  
  

• Notes

  He was a surgeon, among several other skills. He was long thought to have several generations of proven English ancestry through both his father and his mother. Most of this ancestry later turned out to have been based on evidence provided by the genealogist Horatio Gates Somerby, much of whose work was later exposed as forgery. In fact there is no evidence that his near ancestors the Greene family of Gillingham, Dorset were in any way related to the Greenes of Greene's Norton, Northamptonshire. Nor is there any evidence that Dr. Greene's mother was Mary Hooker, a daughter of John Hooker alias Vowell, chamberlain of Exeter. What remains is his descent from three generations of the Greenes of Gillingham. Although Somerby's case for Dr. Greene's descent from the Gillingham Greenes rested, it turned out, on a will that Somerby had himself forged, it was pointed out in 1949 by G. Andrews Moriarty (citation details below) that a letter found in the Boston State House, written by deputy governor John Greene, a son of Dr. Greene, to Edward Rawson of Rhode Island, establishes that the present Greenes were at any rate descended from the Gillingham family. From Wikipedia: John Greene Sr. (c. 1594-1658) was an early settler of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one of the 12 original proprietors of Providence, and a co-founder of the town of Warwick in the colony, sailing from England with his family in 1635. He first settled in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but he had difficulties with the Puritan authorities and soon followed Roger Williams to Providence, becoming one of the original proprietors of that town. In 1643, he joined Samuel Gorton and ten others in purchasing land that became the town of Warwick. Difficulties with Massachusetts ensued, until he accompanied Gorton on a trip to England where they secured royal recognition of their town. Once Warwick became safe from external threats, Greene became active in its government. He served on the town council, was Deputy to the General Court of the colony, and served as magistrate of the General Court of Trials. He died in the last days of 1658, being survived by his wife and six grown children, and becoming the ancestor of many prominent citizens.

  
  

• Sources

  [S1802] George Walter Chamberlain, "The English Ancestry of William Almy of Portsmouth, R.I." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 71:310, October 1917. [S2248] G. Andrews Moriarty, "Gleanings from English Records." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 103:182, July 1949. [S101] The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3 and The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-7, by Robert Charles Anderson. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1996-2011. [S1615] The Greenes of Rhode Island, with Historical Records of English Ancestry by Francis Vinton Greene and Louise Brownell Clarke, based on the work of George Sears Greene. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1903. [S1615] The Greenes of Rhode Island, with Historical Records of English Ancestry by Francis Vinton Greene and Louise Brownell Clarke, based on the work of George Sears Greene. New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1903., year and place only.