Background
Samuel Green was born in 1615 and emigrated to Massachusetts from England with his parents, Bartholomew and Elizabeth, about 1633, and settled in Cambridge.
Samuel Green was born in 1615 and emigrated to Massachusetts from England with his parents, Bartholomew and Elizabeth, about 1633, and settled in Cambridge.
After the retirement of Stephen Day and his son, he became manager of the press which President Dunster of Harvard College had acquired by marriage with the widow of Josse Glover.
Isaiah Thomas was of the opinion that Green had served no apprenticeship; Green himself wrote in 1675, “I was not [before] used unto it. ” Nevertheless, his was the only printing office in the English colonies until 1665; outside of Cambridge and Boston he had no competition until 1685; and he continued in business until 1692. In 1654 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England sent over “iron worke and letter for printing. ” This press was placed under Green’s management also, and the publication of Eliot’s Indian translations begun. In 1660 the Society sent over Marmaduke Johnson and a special set of type.
Eliot’s Indian Bible, completed in 1663, was the greatest of Green’s books and probably owes much of its excellence to Johnson, who was trained in the art. Upon Dunster’s forced resignation in 1654, Green sold his press to Harvard College, and about 1670 the Society’s press was also placed under academic control. With some interruptions Green continued as the college printer. He was also printer for the Colony through 1691, and his editions of The Book of the General Lawes and Libertycs concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts, together with several editions of the Bay Psalm Book, are, after the various Indian books, his chief works.
From 1652 he was for many years clerk of the writs for Middlesex County, and he was town clerk from 1694 to 1697. He was also a considerable landholder. His chief avocation, however, was the militia service, in which he was very active. A sergeant as early as 1653, he rose in rank slowly, did not become captain until he was seventy-five years of age, remaining in office the rest of his life.
Green was twice married. His first wife, Jane Banbridge, died on November 16, 1657; and he became the husband of Sarah Clark Feburary 23, 1662/63. He is supposed to have had nineteen children, and he founded a veritable clan of printers, beginning with his three sons, Samuel, Bartholomew and Timothy.
