William Mercer Green (1798–1887) went to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough in 1825, where he also directed the Hillsborough Female Seminary, and later returned to the University of North Carolina as chaplain and professor of belles lettres. His efforts produced the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill. In 1850 he was consecrated first Episcopal bishop of Mississippi.
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By William Mercer Green
The influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations : an oration, delivered at Chapel-Hill, on Wednesday, June 22, 1831, the day preceding commencement at the University of North-Carolina, according to the annual appointment of the two literary societies belonging to the university
Green, William Mercer, 1798-1887 · 1831
William Mercer Green's oration at Chapel Hill on 22 June 1831, delivered by appointment of the university's two literary societies on the day before commencement, on the influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations. Printed at Hillsborough that year, it stands among the Orange County imprints of 1831 and among the published addresses of the University of North Carolina.
Ten items kept as the papers of William Mercer Green, 1798 to 1887, spanning 1843 to 1887, collection 1120-z in the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, in part a typed transcription. The diaries contain travel writing on Baltimore, Washington, Tennessee and North Carolina, Episcopal bishops, and Green's place on the University of North Carolina faculty. A preservation microfilm was made in 1979.
An Historical Address Delivered in Saint Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, N.C., on Sunday, August 24, 1924
Cheshire, Joseph Blount · 1925
Address by Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire at St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough on 24 August 1924, marking the parish's hundredth anniversary. Printed in Durham in 1925 at the vestry's order, with a foreword by the rector. Cheshire discusses George Micklejohn, William Mercer Green and Moses Ashley Curtis.
Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Green, William Mercer, 1798-1887.
Dated events connected with this person: sixteen of 29, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 29 dated events in the chronology →
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Apparently in revenge for the Shepard suspensions, someone filled a brass door knob with powder, lit a match fuse and left it at Patterson's door. A student picked it up and dropped it moments before it went off, and no one was hurt.
Founding or opening · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough
After decades without a resident minister, Hillsborough's Episcopalians organized a parish again and founded the present St. Matthew's on Thomas Ruffin's gift of land, with William Mercer Green as first rector.
A female seminary opened in Hillsborough on August 1, 1825, taught by Lavinia Brainerd under the supervision of the Rev. William M. Green. DNCR says the Hillsborough Female Academy had been incorporated apart from the male academy in 1824.
Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough
Bishop John Stark Ravenscroft, eight clergy and lay delegates from ten parishes met in Hillsborough in May 1826, gathering in the newly finished St. Matthew's Church, which was consecrated on the Sunday of the session. St. Matthew's sent Thomas Ruffin, William Norwood, Francis L. Hawks and James S. Smith as its delegates.
Construction or physical change · Salem Chapel, near Duncan Cameron's residence, Orange County
Duncan Cameron paid for a chapel near his residence in Orange County for his household and neighbors, standing by 1825 and still unfinished when the bishop preached in it in May 1826. After Cameron executed the deeds, Bishop Ravenscroft consecrated it as Salem Chapel on Sunday, October 7, 1827, assisted by Mr. Wright of Salisbury and by William Mercer Green, who served it from Hillsborough.
William Mercer Green delivers the literary societies' oration before commencement
Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina
On June 22, 1831, the day before commencement, William Mercer Green delivered an oration at Chapel Hill on the influence of Christianity upon the welfare of nations, under the annual appointment of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Dennis Heartt printed it in Hillsborough the same year.
Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough
Two weeks after leaving New York for his new diocese, Bishop Levi S. Ives reached Hillsborough and preached four times in St. Matthew's over a weekend, giving communion to some fifty or sixty people and confirming thirty. Eleven of those confirmed were men, seven of them University of North Carolina students.
Appointment, election or service · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough
Bishop Ives returned to Hillsborough and made Samuel Iredell Johnston and William W. Spear deacons in St. Matthew's Church, with William Mercer Green reading prayers and the Rev. Mr. Freeman preaching. Johnston had been baptized as an adult in the parish, and Spear had spent part of his boyhood in it.
St. Matthew's adds a gallery for Black worshippers under William Mercer Green
Construction or physical change · Hillsborough, St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
In 1835, during William Mercer Green's rectorship, a gallery was added to St. Matthew's Church in Hillsborough to seat Black worshippers. Green also held monthly services at Duncan Cameron's Salem Chapel, where he gave instruction to enslaved people.
Property or economic transaction · St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Hillsborough
Rector William Mercer Green reported in 1836 that St. Matthew's was free of the debt it had carried since the church was built, that the plan of weekly offerings was still working well, and that the parish was raising money for an organ.
William Mercer Green leaves St. Matthew's to become university chaplain and professor
Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina
William Mercer Green accepted a post at the University of North Carolina as chaplain and professor and gave up St. Matthew's in Hillsborough the same year. The Hillsborough congregation had grown from seventeen communicants in his first year to sixty-seven when he left.
Property or economic transaction · Chapel of the Cross, East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill
William Mercer Green told the 1842 diocesan convention that the new Chapel Hill congregation, then fifteen communicants, had bought a lot from the university for its church and had let a contract for part of the building materials.
Property or economic transaction · Montrose, 320 Saint Mary's Road, Hillsborough
Senator William A. Graham bought 59 acres on the Eno River east of Hillsborough from John U. Kirkland, with the house the Rev. William Mercer Green had built there, paying $3,200 plus his town residence and three lots. Graham named the place Montrose, and his son and grandson lived there after him until 1977.
Construction or physical change · Orange County Courthouse, 104 East King Street, Hillsborough
Masons of Eagle Lodge, with brethren from University Lodge, laid the cornerstone of the new courthouse in Hillsborough, with Dr. James S. Smith acting as deputy grand master. The Rev. William M. Green gave the oration in the old courthouse nearby.
The Rev. William Mercer Green buys an East Franklin Street lot and builds a house
Construction or physical change · 513 East Franklin Street, Chapel Hill
Episcopal minister William Mercer Green bought the lot at 513 East Franklin Street in 1847 and had a two-story frame house built there before he sold it, two years later, to Charles Phillips, professor of engineering and mathematics.
Petitions from several denominations reached the board in December 1849 asking to ease compulsory Sunday worship in the college chapel. On January 4, 1850 the trustees voted down a broader plan and adopted Samuel F. Patterson's rule letting communicants attend the church of their choice while all others still attended chapel, a rule that stood about ten years.
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People named in the same dated entries as William Mercer Green, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.
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Picture: William Mercer Green, portrait published 1897. Public domain. Photograph by Perry, William Stevens; Perry, William Stevens, The bishops of the American church, past and present. Sketches, biographical and bibliographical, of the bishops of the American Church. With a preliminary essay on the historic episcopate and documentary annals of the introduction of the Anglican line of succession into America. New York: The Christian Literature Co, 1897; via Wikimedia Commons
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