For
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 674
FREDERICK H. GREEN....No unusual or exciting experiences have constituted chapters in the life record of Frederick H. Green, but fidelity to duty, a progressive spirit and business activity have made him one of the valued residents of Muscatine, where he is now successfully engaged in the conduct of a drugstore. The family of which he is a representative traces its ancestry back in this country to Ezekiel Green, a soldier of the Revolutionary war, who in 1781 journeyed from Little Compton, Connecticut by team to Rutland, Vermont. It was there that Joseph Green, the grandfather of our subject, was born and reared and in the course of years became a leading merchant of that place and a man of considerable local influence, although he died when but twenty-four years of age. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Marcia Reed, afterward came to the west and died in Muscatine in 1859.Their son, Joseph A. Green, was born in Rutland on the 24th of February, 1814, and died in Muscatine of the 10th of November, 1876. He was described in his boyhood as a tall, slender youth, courageous and full of fun. He was seventeen years of age when in the spring of 1831 he left his native city and started with a drove of cattle for Detroit, Michigan. The journey successfully accomplished, he returned to the Green Mountain state and afterward engaged in clerking in a general syore in Castleton. But he had felt the fascination of the west and afterward made his way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he found employment in the general store of a Mr. Bowman, whose first wife was Eliza Reed, an aunt of Joseph A. Green. Following her death Mr. Bowman wedded her sister Emily, who passed away a few years later, and Mr. Bowman did not long survive her. On leaving Milwaukee, Joseph A. Green made his way to St. Louis, where he found employment in a shoe store, and in 1844 he came to Muscatine, Iowa, with the business interests of which city he has long been identified. He formed a partnership with a Mr. Enders for the conduct of a clothing store in a building on the present site of the McQuesten & Sawyer hardware store. When Mr. Enders withdrew from the business George C. Stone became a partner of Mr. Green under the firm name of Green & Stone, dealers in general merchandise. They removed from their original location across the street into a room later occupied by Adam Hild as a grocery store. Success attended the venture and about 1845 they enlarged the scope of their business by engaging in pork packing in the Isett warehouse opposite the oatmeal mill on Front street. These interests, however, did not seem to constitute sufficient scope for their activities and ambitions and in 1850 they established a bank in a room later occupied by the New Process Laundry. In 1857 they erected and occupied a building which afterward the property of J. H. Canon and about 1859 they erected a brick pork-packing house in South Muscatine and also laid out the village of Greentown, Green street being named in honor of the senior member of the firm. In the fall of 1861 the bank suspended. On the 15th of May that year Mr. Green was elected state senator over A. M. Hare, to fill the vacancy caused by the removal of A. O. Patterson, who left the state. He served during the special session of that summer when measures were taken to put Iowa on a war footing. His wife was a native of Buckfield, Maine. She bore the maiden name of Cyrena Bisbee and was a granddaughter of John Bisbee, a soldier of the Revolutionary war and a daughter of Martin and Lucy ( Cushman ) Bisbee. her father was a merchant and pioneer of the state of Maine, and both he and his wife died there when well advanced in years, having had seven or eight children, including Cyrena, who became the wife of Joseph A. Green. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Green were born the following children : Helen. M., living in Muscatine ; Willard Reed, a resident of New York city ; George Alexander, of Metcalf, Arizona ; Henry Lee, whose home is in Quincy, Illinois ; Elizabeth, the wife of Irving B, Richman, of Muscatine ; and Frederick H.
The last named still occupies the old home in Muscatine in which he was born September 1, 1861. At the usual age he was sent to the public schools and gradual advancement through the successive grades brought him to the high school, while later he completed a course in Bryant & Stratton Commercial College in Chicago. Desiring to engage in the drug business as a life work, he spent two years as a student in the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and took one year in law in the Columbia College Law School in New York City. His attention throughout his active connection with business affairs has been given to the conduct of a drug store in Muscatine and his ability as a pharmacist well qualifies him for the compounding and sale of medicines and drugs. He has an attractive and well appointed store and a liberal patronage is accorded him.
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