Ashbel Green

Ashbel Green
President of Princeton University
In office 1812–1822
Preceded by	Samuel Stanhope Smith
Succeeded by	James Carnahan
3rd Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives
In office November 5, 1792 – November 27, 1800
Preceded by	Samuel Blair
Succeeded by	Thomas Lyell
Personal details
Born	July 6, 1762 Hanover Township, Province of New Jersey
Died	May 19, 1848 (aged 85)

Ashbel Green, D.D. (July 6, 1762 – May 19, 1848) was an American Presbyterian minister and academic.

Born in Hanover Township, New Jersey, Green served as a sergeant of the New Jersey militia during the American Revolutionary War, and went on to study with Dr. John Witherspoon and graduate as valedictorian from the College of New Jersey, known since 1896 as Princeton University, in 1783.^[1] Green later became the third Chaplain of the United States House of Representatives from 1792 to 1800, the eighth (and highly unpopular, due to what many students saw as his heavy-handed leadership style) President of Princeton University, from 1812 to 1822, and the second President of the Bible Society at Philadelphia (now known as the Pennsylvania Bible Society) after having been one its founding members in 1808.^[2]

Green was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814.^[3]

He emancipated his family's slave Betsey Stockton in 1817, taught her and recommended her as a missionary to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, making her the first single female overseas missionary. He also published a periodical entitled the Christian Advocate.

Green married Elizabeth Stockton on November 3, 1785. They had three children: Robert Stockton Green (1787–1813), Jacob Green (1790–1842), and James Sproat Green (1792–1862), the latter of whom served as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and was the father of Robert Stockton Green (1831–1895), Governor of New Jersey. After his first wife died in January 1807, he married Christina Anderson in October 1809. They had one child: Ashbel Green, Jr. (b. 1811).^[1][4]

Notes

1. "Ashbel Green Papers". Princeton University Manuscripts Division. Retrieved 2009-11-25.
2. Pennsylvania Bible Society - Meet the Original Managers
3. American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
4. Genealogical and memorial history of the state of New Jersey. 4. 1910. pp. 1554–5.

Archival Collections

The Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has a collection of Ashbel Green's original papers, including sermons and correspondence.

External links

• Princeton University biography