He was no less fond of pomology, and during the fall season he took me behind him on his horse Whitey to the farm to assist in carrying the implements for ingrafting his young thrifty apple orchard, and with eager eyes I watched the sound selected branch from which with fine saw he lopped off the upper portion. Next with mallet and chisel midway the stalk was cleft for the wedge-cut scion's insertion where the two barks met to catch the up flowing sap in spring. Then with trowel the plastic clay was overlaid to hold firm the scions against the rude blasts of winter, and then the flaxen tow was wound around, and last of all a bandage deftly fastened, and all so artistically done, as in a few years well repaid him with its ample fruitage. Several trees were grafted with scions cut from an aged tree in Massachusetts, the bark nearly destroyed by the wood-peckers, and hence its name of "Pecker-Apple." It attained a large size, resembling the well-known Baldwin, though firmer and handsomer; and when ripe in mid-winter, it was with its crisp golden pulp and juicy flavor the most delicious apple I have ever eaten.
Dr. Green was an ardent patriot and Federalist, a brave and consistent champion of that independence he had helped to win, and a zealous advocate for that constitution he had aided to establish. From early life to the last he was an opponent of the institution of slavery, and predicted that sooner or later the free and slave states would be involved in a bitter controversy on that account. That he was spared the realization of his fears, was a mercy to his sensitive heart.
In his mode of life he aimed at no ostentatious show. Polite and affable in his deportment, he won the respect due to courteous manners.
In personal appearance and contour of face, he was not unlike Gen. Washington, for whom he was often taken while in the army. In stature he was six feet three inches tall and proportionately large in frame; and whether walking or sitting, he always maintained a very erect position. The woodcut engraving which accompanies this sketch represents Dr. Green at the age of fifty-five years, and is a very perfect outline likeness. The steel engraved portrait is taken from a rather indistinct daguerreotype likeness when he was one hundred years of age. He had a sound, vigorous constitution, strengthened and preserved by uniform temperate habits, daily physical exercise, early hours for retirement, and rising with the opening day. At the age of 82 years he fell and broke his thigh bone where it entered its socket; and little did he or his physician believe that at his advanced age it would ever unite, as it did after several months confinement to his bed; so that in the course of time, with the aid of crutch or cane, he was enabled to hobble about his house and garden, and occasionally to attend church.
Ten years more had nearly elapsed, when another more serious accident befel him. From an early morning stroll in front of his house, he came in doors, and standing by the window reading, was suddenly prostrated backward to the floor, seemingly, to him, by a violent blow on his cranium, and so wrenching his spinal column, as deprived him ever after of all power of locomotion. Happily this accident was unattended with pain, and there in his cosey easy chair, with books, papers, &c. around him, his days and years flew apace without weariness or complaint, and with that sweet serenity of mind and calm christian patience which won the most devotioned care and affectionate love of his two only surviving daughters.
From his personal friends, he had frequent social visits, and from strangers not a few, from far and near, attracted by his venerable age, or a desire to hear him recount his varied experience during our revolutionary war. Groups too of merry children, for whom he had a kindly fondness, came often with tasteful flowers to greet him. Such indeed was his uniform gentleness of disposition, and lively interest in all public and domestic affairs, that he left questionable evidence on the minds of not a few strangers, as to the extreme old age attributed to him.
Here, in conclusion, I will add that, on learning my dear father's indisposition, I hastened to see him, and found him suffering somewhat, as it seemed, from the effects of a cold and cough. To gratify me he took some homœopathic pellets I recommended, smilingly remarking that such an infinitesimal potion could neither kill nor cure. Finding himself the next morning much relieved, he exclaimed that that was not what he desired, "for it has been my daily prayer the last year to my Heavenly Father, to take me to himself, and I believe he has kept me here a year longer, for my ceaseless importunity." Whereat I asked, have you not enjoyed your usual good health and happy intercourse with your devoted daughters and friends? O yes! that I have, and every worldly comfort and enjoyment I desire, but now I long to depart. Like the late renowned Mrs. Mary Somerville, of England, he dreaded the possibility of his physical powers outliving his mental faculties; and then said, "what an incubus I should be to my loving daughters, who would then wish me in my grave."
Happily was it that he was exempt from all those fretful, fractious feelings to which aged people are occasionally subject. Such was his universal cheerful temperament and mental activity, that his death to his idolizing daughters was no less grievous than that of a darling child to a fond mother; and so it was, that this eminently good and venerable man's prayer was soon after my visit indulged, and on July 25, 1847, he expired at the very advanced age of 101 years and 28 days, retaining to his last hour a clear unclouded mind, and with the full faith and confiding hope of entering a future world of progressive improvement and happiness.
On the one hundredth anniversary of Dr. Green's birth-day, the 28th of June, 1846, his former friend and pastor, the Rev. Samuel K. Lothrop, of Boston, preached in Dover a commemorative discourse [ [5] ] on this event, and from its appendix I make the following extract:—