Jonas Green, baptized December 28, 1712, was the great-grandson of Samuel Green, the Cambridge, Mass. , printer who succeeded the pioneer printers of English America, in 1649, and the fifth son of Deacon Timothy Green and Mary Flint of Boston.
His father, a printer, removed in 1714 to New London, Connecticut, and here Jonas learned his trade.
Subsequently Jonas worked for a brother in the firm of Kneeland & Green, of Boston, and while in that city issued one book with his imprint, the first Hebrew grammar printed in America, by Judah Monis.
Going to Philadelphia, he worked for both Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Bradford. In 1738 he removed to Annapolis, Maryland, where he became public printer to the Province. His earliest known imprints in Annapolis are of 1739. Here, on Charles Street, January 17, 1745, he established the Maryland Gazette, second of that name, which was continued by him, his wife, his sons, or his grandson, until December 12, 1839. When the Stamp Act of 1765 went into effect Green headed his issue of October 10 as “Maryland Gazette, Expiring: In uncertain Hopes of a Resurrection to Life again. ”
On January 30, 1766, it appeared as “The Maryland Gazette, Reviving. ” During the war period from December 25, 1777, the paper was suspended until publication was resumed by Green’s two sons on April 30, 1779. From October 1758 to 1766 Green had William Rind, a former apprentice and journeyman, as his partner on the newspaper. Two other known employees were Thomas Sparrow, Maryland’s first engraver, and William Poultney, a binder.
In Annapolis Green was an alderman, vestryman of St. Anne’s Parish, postmaster many years, an auctioneer at public sales, clerk of entries at horse-races, secretary of the lodge of Masons, and secretary of the Tuesday Club, a convivial professional club of gentlemen, in which he was dubbed “P. P. P. P. P. ,” meaning poet, printer, punster, purveyor, and punchmaker.
He died on April 11, 1767, at his residence in Annapolis. His widow at once assumed the conduct of the printing business and the Gazette, assisted by her son William. She died on March 23, 1775, and the family tribute in the Gazette referred to her as of a “mild and benevolent Disposition” as well as “an Example to her Sex. ”
As a social being he seems to have been “a whimsical, good-natured man, quick of wit, kindly and obliging, the friend and comrade of all his little world”.
Quotes from others about the person
Isaiah Thomas said of his printing that it “was correct, and few, if any, in the colonies exceeded him in the neatness of his work. ” Regarding his newspaper Thomas said it was as good as “any paper then printed on the continent. ”
On April 25, 1738, he was married ip Christ Church to Anne Catherine Hoof, born in Holland. They had six sons and eight daughters, eight of the children dying in infancy.
