STEPHEN GREEN

GREEN, CARD, HUNT, MOONEY

Posted By: Norma Nielson (email)
Date: 8/12/2004 at 21:09:56

Stephen Green, an honored veteran of the Civil war and a well known older settler of Adair county, has lived on his farm of one hundred and seventy-one acres on section 18, Union township, during the past thirty-two years, and he and his sons also own three hundred and twenty acres of land on sections 5, 6 and 7 of that township. His birth occurred in New York on the 6th of December, 1841, his parents being David M. and Anna (Card) Green, who were likewise natives of the Empire state and came of New England ancestry. The father removed to Cold Harbor, Michigan, where he worked at the carpenter’s trade until his demise, which occurred on the 26th of February, 1854. The widowed mother spent the remainder of her life with a daughter in Rock Island, Illinois, where she passed away on the 15th of December, 1875.
Stephen Green was reared under the parental roof and attended the public schools in the acquirement of an education. As a youth he worked with his father at the carpenter’s trade. On the 12th of August, 1862, when not yet twenty-one years of age, he joined the Union army as a member of Company E, One Hundred and Twelfth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and until the close of hostilities served in the Army of the Cumberland under General Burnside. He participated in the battles of Knoxville, Athens and Chickamauga and in other engagements and was captured at Knoxville, with twenty-two other men, spending eighteen months in rebel prisons. He was confined at Belle Isle, Virginia, for three months, and afterward transferred to Andersonville, Milan, Savannah, Blackshear, Ocean Pond, Florida, and Jacksonville, being released at the last named place. Mr. Green then returned home but did not receive his discharge until two months later, on the 30th of May, 1865, for on the records of his regiment he had been marked as dead. Only two of the twenty-three men captured at the time he was taken returned home, the other twenty-one dying in prison and most of the number at Andersonville. His service for his country was characterized by the utmost loyalty and his courage never faltered through all the dangers, hardships and terrors of his military career.
Again taking up the pursuits of civil life, Mr. Green was engaged in farming in Illinois until March, 1878, when he came to Adair county, Iowa, here cultivating rented land for five years. On the expiration of that period he purchased his present home farm of one hundred and seventy-one acres on section 18, Union township whereon he has resided continuously during the intervening thirty-two years. He also owns eighty acres of land on section 6, a place of similar size on section 5, and two other eighty-acre tracts on section 6 and section 7, which have been allotted to four of his sons. His undertakings as an agriculturist have been attended with a most gratifying measure of prosperity and he has long been numbered among the substantial and esteemed citizens of the community.
Mr. Green has been married twice. In 1865 he wedded Miss Fannie Hunt, of Farmington, Illinois, by whom he had two sons: Charles A., at home; and Sylvester S., of Union township. The wife and mother passed away in 1869, and in 1870 Mr. Green was again married, his second union being with Miss Abbie Mooney, of Kewanee, Illinois, by whom he has five children, as follows: Edward T., Harry F. and Walter O., all of whom are engaged in farming in Union township; Archie C., who operates the home farm; and Nellie M., who is the wife of Charles Younkins of Alliance, Nebraska.
In politics Mr. Green is a stanch republican, loyally supporting the men and measures of the party which was the defense of the Union during the dark days of the Civil war. He belongs to the Grand Army post at Orient and thus still maintains pleasant relations with his old comrades among the fast thinning ranks of the “boys in blue.” His religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Christian church, to which his wife also belongs. He has now passed the seventy-third milestone on this earthly pilgrimage and his entire life has been in harmony with the principles of upright, honorable manhood, so that he well merits the esteem and veneration which is uniformly accorded him.
Source: The "History of Adair County Iowa and its People," Volume II. (Chicago, The Pioneer Publishing Company) 1915.