Family Line Green with Envy - About Whaling-Master Capt Henry Green
By Danny McCarthy
Well-known whaling-master from Sag Harbor Captain Henry Green was the choice of 19 other whaling-masters to command the Sabina?on a voyage that carried 50 fortune-seekers to the California goldfields. The famed Commodore of the East End’s Whaling Fleet from the sea in 1851 and relocated to the North Fork to the hamlet of Cutchogue into the of Benjamin Case where the captain became a North Fork farmer.
The story goes that the original house was owned by Colonel Benjamin Case who married Lucretia Goldsmith two years before the War of 1812. It is believed that he acquired ownership of the house around that time. The Colonel kept a country store after his return from the war. In 1819 he was appointed Cutchogue’s first postmaster and his home was the site of Cutchogue’s first post office.
The house location is really located between the hamlets of Peconic and Cutchogue on Route 25 opposite Skunk Lane. This particular location was just one of the many from Skunk Lane to Peconic Lane. The owners were mainly retired whaleship captains. Thus the area became known as Whaler’s Row (or Blubberville). The Henry Green House was referred to as the “queen of Blubber Row.” Near neighbors included Captains James Edwin Horton, James M. Worth, and Theron Bunker Worth.
On June 27, 1873, Captain Henry Green died unexpectedly at the age of 79. He left his wife Roxanna to the care of his son Florence and several daughters who were still living at home. As Florie’s inheritance the Captain left 40 acres, barns, and the Cutchogue Main Road farm home. Henry and Roxanna are buried with several of their children in Sag Harbor in the Oakland Cemetery.
Charles Nathan Green was another son of Captain Green. According to a friend, Charles had quite a varied life in his younger days. He went in 1849 on his father’s ship the Sabina which took out a number of men from Southold and other towns to the newly discovered goldfields in California. The friend of Charles remembered him remarking that the wharfs of San Francisco were so full of ships that the ships never left port since the outgoing crews were all out at the goldfields. Charles once loaned the friend a log of the Sabina that was written by his father. The friend reported that Charles was a wonderful man who had a happy temperament that made his friend feel better.
Charles went to Detroit and from there drifted west to San Francisco where he enlisted in the army and then went to Washington with his regiment. An compiled by Brigadier-General Richard H. Orton in Sacramento in 1890 called Records of California Men in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1867 reads: “In late 1862 and early 1863, more than 500 men in California who wanted to fight for the North in the Civil War tried to enlist in California. Because the California troops were going to stay in California and because Massachusetts was having trouble filling its quota of troops, arrangements were made for California to recruit five companies that Massachusetts would ship back east and pay to fight. They became part of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. A Charles N. Green was one of those men. He mustered out July 20, 1865 with no mention of any specific military specialties or any wounds. The trip east was by steamer and took about three weeks instead of the six Charles had spent sailing to California in 1849.”
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Charles married Julia B. Wells in 1866.?He had been living in Connecticut the last few years of his life and his friend was surprised to hear that he was and very sick. Charles Nathan Green passed away on August 25, 1901 and is buried in Willow Hill Cemetery on the Main Road in Southold along with his wife and their children Harry S. and his wife Jane, Edward H. and his wife Sarah J., and daughters, Jane G. Malona and Julia F. Green.
According to the listing found in the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities (SPLIA), the Col. Benjamin Case/Capt. Henry Green house is one of the North Fork’s most important landmarks. Many have been replaced but not the dormers. There are muntins in the Federal classic style found around the as well.
The Historical Committee of the Southold-Peconic Civic Association (now the Southold Historical Society) placed permanent historic markers on old structures and sites by 1960 as one of the offerings made to the New York State Year of History. According to the June 4, 1959 issue of the Long Island Traveler-Mattituck Watchman, the “telling” point of the design of the markers is a silhouette of an Indian head as well as a Pilgrim’s head on the top of the plate. An historical marker can be found on the old structure of the Colonel Benjamin Case pre-1815 house that became the home of Captain Henry Green in 1851.
The Southold Historical Society has Captain Henry Green memorabilia at the Horton Point Lighthouse Nautical Museum. Included in the artifact collection is a sea chest that was carried aboard the whaleship Sabina in 1849 and then in 1850 was carried atop a stagecoach on the Captain’s return trip. The Captain’s portrait, cane, and the jewelry box he carved and inlaid for Roxanna are there. A pamphlet by Donald A. Dohrman about the Captain as well as information on the Captain’s Amistad participation is also available. The museum is open Memorial Day weekend to Columbus Day weekend.
William Chatfield Buckingham was a chronicle-keeping Cutchogue blacksmith who is noted for his diary that includes the following: “March 20, 1852—Capt. H. Green goes to Washington on very important business, to sell the Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, a chart of ‘Jappan’ found on board a Chinese junk by Capt. Mercator Cooper, on a whaling voyage. This is to assist an exploring expedition, now getting up by the United States.” That chart enabled Captain Matthew Perry to sail an American fleet into Tokyo Bay a year later and open Japan to the world.
CAPTAIN HENRY GREEN also was renown for making trips to California sailing passengers who ended up being 49'ers. - https://undark.org/2022/01/24/the-gold-rush-returns-to-california/?utm_source=pocket-newtab/
In November 2015, Mike Hagerman was hosting an event as part of one of the Southold 375th Anniversary Celebration events. The subject of whaling came up. I approached Rita and Mike at Academy and they asked me to go ahead and compose an item on North Fork's Whaling History, and that made the November 2015 "Peconic Bay Shopper" - My article begins on page three:?https://www.academyprintingservices.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/PBS_Nov2015web_Part1.316134125.pdf
I composed my whaling article while my mom was in hospice and I called hospice and the nurse got back to me saying that she let my mom know that my whaling made the November 2015 The Peconic Bay Shopper - and then my mom passed away November 16, 2015.