BIO: Henry S. GREENE, Huntingdon County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lana Clark Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ********************************************************** __________________________________________________________ Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley: Comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata and Perry, Pennsylvania, Containing Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens and Many of the Early Settlers. Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. Runk & Co., 1897, page 283-284 __________________________________________________________ HENRY S. GREENE, Trough Creek, Huntingdon county, Pa., was born in Blair county, then forming a part of Huntingdon, May 15, 1823. He is a son of Samuel L. and Elizabeth L. (Stewart) Greene. John Greene, the father of Samuel L., and grandfather of Henry S. Greene, was a brother of the well known Revolutionary general, Nathaniel Greene. The family is of English ancestry, and settled in the province of Pennsylvania at an early date. John Greene, as well as his brother, was a soldier under Washington. Peace being restored, he passed the remainder of his life at Brandywine Manor and Greene Hill, Chester county, Pa. He had two children, of whom Samuel L. was the elder, born at Brandywine in 1789. The younger was Keziah, wife of O. M. Coulter, of Ohio. John Greene and his wife both died at Brandywine Manor. Samuel L. Greene had an excellent education, above the average of his times. He was a man of intelligence, and shared the taste for writing that seems to have been hereditary in the family, to judge from the graphic productions of Professor Greene, grandson of the General, and therefore second cousin of Samuel L. Greene. The latter gentleman, however, did not devote his life to literature, although fond of indulging in verse, but followed the modest callings of shoemaker and plasterer. He was lively and humorous, and a very genial companion. He was a Whig, and an admirer of Henry Clay. Late in life, he took up anti-Masonic principles. Samuel L. Greene was married in Scotts valley, Blair county, to Elizabeth Lafferty, daughter of Alexander Stewart, of Philadelphia, a farmer of Scotch-Irish descent, whose grandfather had fought in the French and Indian war. Her ancestral line can be clearly traced as far back as 1200 A.D.; the family originated in the Scotch Highlands. Mrs. Greene was born in 1795, within the present limits of Blair county, then Huntingdon. Their children were: Perry S., died in 1896, in Illinois; Johnston A., died in August, 1895, in Iowa; Allan J., of Davenport, Iowa; Henry S.; Maria, deceased, wife of Cyrus Mateer, of Mifflin county, Pa.; and Maxwell J. Samuel L. Greene died in Catharine township, Blair county, in December, 1828; his wife in the same place, in 1866. In a log school house in "Polecat Hollow," Blair county, its windows glazed with oiled paper, its benches slabs of wood from the adjacent forests, brought in without too much nicety of preparation; the bears that roamed those forests lending some spice of excitement to break the monotony of school life, under the old master, John D. Tussey; under such auspices as these, Henry S. Greene acquired the rudiments of education. Yet, unpromising as such a beginning might seem, and although his father died when the boy was but five years old, who was already trotting by that father's side in the fields, learning lessons of work; although, obliged to support himself, he learned to be carpenter, millwright and bridge builder, and worked hard nearly all his life, still Mr. Greene found time to make intellectual acquisitions, having a good general education, and even reading Greek and Hebrew. He fixed his residence in Tod township, in 1843; there he worked at carpentry; the first barn built by him in the township was his own. He bought in 1849, a farm: in that part of the township which is now Carbon township. After cultivating it for nine years, he sold it in 1858, and removed to another farm of 128 acres, which he improved and has since cultivated, and which is his present home. Farmer, stock raiser, constructor of mills and bridges; and a teacher for fourteen years in Tod township, again school director for thirty one years; Mr. Greene has certainly done good service to his generation, and by such diligence as well as by his affable and genial manners, deserves the esteem in which he is held. Mr. Greene has taken an active part in politics, being an ardent Republican; in early life, he was a Whig. He has been mercantile appraiser of the county, and supervisor, auditor, and assessor of the township. Henry S. Greene was married in Tod township, June 16, 1844, to Louisa, daughter of Adams Houck, farmer, of Hopewell township, where Mrs. Greene was born, August 9, 1826. Their children are: Mary E. (Mrs. A. J. Hall), of Tod township; Milton Monroe, deceased, was in the United States army in the war of the Rebellion; Eugene H., underwriter, St. Paul, Minn.; William E. E., architect and contractor, of Minnesota; Americus Vespucius, school teacher and manager of the game of base ball, Cherokee, Iowa; Frances M. (Mrs. Hilary Chilcoat), of Randolph county, Mo.; Sarah M.; died of smallpox in 1862; and Adin S., school teacher, lost his leg on the P.R.R., April 22, 1895, and his thumb in a saw-mill, May 7, 1894, is now at home. Maxwell I. Greene, youngest brother of Henry S. Greene, was a printer and editor. He was also a historian, author of a "History of Kansas," and of the "Book of the World." He was fond of travel; visited all, or nearly all, parts of Asia and Africa. He was last heard from in London, England, where it is thought that he died. Some poems composed by him in his boyhood and early manhood, and still preserved as relics by his family, give evidence of precocious talent, displaying much poetic fancy, and an aptitude for versification which, if cultivated, would certainly have given him a high rank among authors.