John Green
John Green was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in June 1636, the year after his parents came over from London in the Susan and Ellen. His father was Percival Green, a husbandman, and his mother was Ellen. Lucius Paige's History of Cambridge (1877) and An Account of Percival and Ellen Green (1876) both place him as their son. His father died on Christmas Day 1639, when John was three. He had one sister, Elizabeth, born in April 1639.
About 1650 his mother married Thomas Fox. In the marriage agreement Fox bound himself to pay "ten pounds apiece unto the two children of the sd Ellen Greene." John was then fourteen.
On 20 October 1656 he married Ruth Mitchelson. She was seventeen and the eldest child of Edward Mitchelson, Marshal-General of the colony, and his wife Ruth Bushell. John and Ruth were both members of the church at Cambridge. They had fourteen children in twenty four years, from John in July 1657 to Mitchelson in March 1681. The last was named for his mother's family and died at seven months. A daughter Mary was born at some point the records did not catch.
He was a tailor by trade. His father-in-law held the office of Marshal-General from 1637 until his death in March 1681. Paige describes the office as "similar in many respects to that of High Sheriff": the marshal served the colony's courts, carrying out their orders and collecting what they imposed. Three months after Mitchelson died, the General Court gave the office to John Green. The court's record reads: "John Greene is chosen Marshall Gennirall by the whole Court and tooke his oath the same day before the Gove'no' & Magistrates the third of June, 1681." Edward Rawson, the colony's secretary, attested it.
In 1687 Sir Edmund Andros governed Massachusetts as part of the Dominion of New England, and under him John Green was put out of the office. Samuel Gookin took his place. In 1689 Boston rose against Andros and the old government came back. The Governor and Council then chose John Green again. Their order reads: "The Gov'r & Councill have made choice of John Green to be ye Marshall Generall for this Colony till other orders be taken; desiring ye consent of ye Representatives hereto." Thomas Danforth signed it for the Council. Below it Ebenezer Prout, clerk of the Representatives, wrote "Not consented to." The family account of 1876 says he was reinstated "though apparently with some opposition." Paige gives the date of his return as 15 August 1689.
He died at Cambridge on 3 March 1690/1, "nearly 55." His estate was inventoried on 4 April 1691 at £85 16s 6d. It included "A House & Orchard" and "Sixteen Acres of land on Cambridge Rocks." That same year his children went to law against Thomas Fox, their grandmother's second husband, to recover Percival Green's old homestead. They lost. His widow Ruth married Samuel Champney.
Several of his children made names of their own. Percival graduated from Harvard in 1680 and was minister at Wells until he died in 1684. Edward went to sea as a mariner and died on a voyage in 1696, having made his will on board the ship Friendship. Joseph graduated from Harvard in 1695 and became minister of Salem Village after the witchcraft trials. Mary married the Rev. Nathaniel Huntting, minister of East Hampton on Long Island, on 27 October 1701.
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Cite: Heirology, "John Green (1636-1690)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-green-1636-1690-353f39.