As a previous posting notes, John Randolph Green is mentioned in a letter that his first cousin William Nichols Green, son of Joscelin B. Green and Elizabeth Nichols, sent to John’s father James Hamilton Green on 15 September 1863 from William’s CSA camp near Fredericksburg, Virginia. The posting I’ve just linked points to a digital copy and transcription of this letter at the Spared & Shared website.[2] The transcription of the letter at this website includes the following biographical information about John R. Green:
John Randolph Green (1844-1924) was William’s cousin who served in Co. F (“Tuscaloosa Rifles”), 50th Alabama Infantry. During the war he was wounded in both thighs and had his right arm broken. He was wounded in April 1862 at the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee. He was severely wounded later that year on 31 December 1862 at the Battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. According to his own words, Green was placed in a cavalry unit as a 1st Lieutenant about 2 months before the end of the war. Green survived the war and in 1866 he moved to Kentucky for 2 years before returning home. Later in life he lived in the Confederate Soldier’s Home in Verbena, Alabama. He died on 8 December 1924 and is buried there at what is now known as Confederate Memorial Park; the location of the old soldier’s home.
John’s reply to the 1921 questionnaire sent to Alabama CSA veterans states that he enlisted as a private in Co. F, the “Tuscaloosa Rifles”, 26th Alabama Infantry, in Tuscaloosa in the spring of 1869. The “Tuscaloosa Rifles” company, Co. F, was the same company housed in an infantry unit with two different numerical designations as these designations shirted over the course of the war.
On 7 January 1869, John married Ellen Matina Caffee/Calfee, daughter of Richmond C. Caffee and Cynthia L. Moses, in Bibb County. John’s response to the 1921 Alabama census of CSA veterans states that the couple married at the house of Ellen’s father in Bibb County.[3] John’s sister Mary Caroline Green married Ellen’s brother John Rucker Caffee.
John and Ellen farmed and raised their family near Woodstock in Bibb County and, in the final years of their lives, they lived with their son James Richmond Green in Bibb County until the very end of John’s life, when he and Ellen were admitted to the Confederate Veterans’ Home in Mountain Creek in Chilton County, Alabama, where John died on 8 February and was buried in the cemetery of the veterans’ home.[4] His tombstone in Confederate Memorial Park cemetery 2 in Chilton County gives his date of death and states that he was 82 years of age when he died.[5]
John’s wife Ellen, who was born in February 1849, is buried with him in the Confederate home cemetery in Chilton County, with her tombstone stating that she died 7 April 1930. Ellen died at the Confederate home.
A digital image of an oil portrait of John Randolph Green painted about 1850, when John was a boy, is included in the previous posting.
b. George Kerr Green was born from 1846-8 in Bibb County, Alabama. His birth year as indicated by federal censuses from 1850 through 1880 ranges from 1846 to 1848. He was born between his brothers John Randolph Green, who was born, as noted above, on 7 February 1844, and James William Green, who was born on 14 January 1851, so both the 1846-8 birth years fit what’s known about the configuration of the family of James Hamilton Green.
On either 26 February 1873 or 28 February 1874 at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, George married Jane Tyson Moore, daughter of Samuel D.J. Moore and Maria Anna Forney of Tuscaloosa. I say the couple married on “either” of those dates because Jane filed several applications for George’s Confederate service, each giving different dates for the marriage. In her first application filed on 15 September 1909 at Rockport in Aransas County, Texas, she says the couple married 26 February 1873. In her second application filed on 11 September 1913 at Dublin in Erath County, Texas, she states the marriage date as 28 January 1874.[6] In a third pension application Jane filed at Oneonta in Blount County, Alabama, on 23 August 1915, Jane gives the marriage date as 26 January 1874 (Alabama Confederate pension files, Blount County, file 2515). The first of the two applications actually states a third and clearly erroneous date for the marriage: in addition to giving the 28 February 1874 date, it says the couple married 28 February 1909 — after George died, with his death date stated in the pension application as 31 January 1891. Both pension applications give George’s name in full as George Kerr Green.
Since the marriage records of Tuscaloosa County are not available digitally at the FamilySearch site, I cannot (as I work on this posting) check the original marriage record at that site to determine which of the two dates in 1873 and 1874 Jane gives for the marriage in her CSA widow’s pension applications is correct. I’m not sure why she filed three separate applications; perhaps she did so because the first application received a reply from the office of the Adjutant General of the War Department in Washington, D.C., sent to the Texas Commissioner of Pensions on 5 February 1912, stating that George K. Green did not appear on the muster-in roll of Co. F, 50th Alabama Infantry, the CSA unit in which Jane said George served, but that he did show up in a roll of prisoners of war from this unit captured and paroled in June 1865 at Selma, Alabama.
In the first of her pension applications, Jane states, as I’ve just discussed, that her husband George served in Co. F of the 50th Alabama Infantry during the Civil War. The second application states that George was in Co. F of the 26th Alabama Infantry. This was the same military unit, the “Tuscaloosa Rifles,” in which George’s brother John also served. The second of Jane’s pension applications contains an affidavit George’s brother John R. Green made in Bibb County, Alabama, on 6 October 1913, confirming his brother’s CSA service as stated by Jane in her application. Another affidavit given in Bibb County on the same date by S.K. Tibbs was witnessed by John.
Following their marriage, George and Jane farmed and raised their family near George’s family in Bibb County, where the 1880 federal census shows them living in Kingdom beat close to George’s brother James William Green, who’s enumerated on the same page, with his brother John Randolph Green and their widowed mother Sarah Echols Randolph Green listed on the previous census page.[7]
At some point after 1880, George and Jane moved their family from Alabama to Texas, where George K. Green died in Coryell County on either 31 January 1891, the death date given in the first pension application, or 31 January 1892, the death date as it appears in the second pension application. The third pension application filed in Alabama gives the 31 January 1892 date of death for George, but also says he died in 1888 and in 1890 at Gatesville, Texas. I have not found a burial record for George, but think it’s likely he’s buried in Gatesville cemetery at Gatesville in Coryell County, where Jane is buried along with their children Harriet and George.[8]
Jane died 29 April 1936 at the Confederate Woman’s Home in Austin, Texas.[9] Her death certificate states that she was born 8 October 1849 in Tuscaloosa, daughter of Jewett Sam Moore and Maria Forney. (Jane’s CSA pension application in Blount County, Alabama, gives her date of birth as 8 November 1849.) The death certificate gives her husband’s name as George “Karl” Green. The informant was Mrs. Susie Peale Butter, superintendent of the Confederate Woman’s Home. The death certificate notes that Jane’s body was being sent to Gatesville for burial. I think it’s very likely that the information Mrs. Butter reported came directly from Jane. Note that the surname Kerr was pronounced in the past as if it rhymed with “car,” so that it would be easy to hear someone report that her spouse was named George Kerr Green and to think that the middle name was Karl.
A death notice for Jane appeared in the Austin American-Statesman on 30 April 1936, noting that she had died the previous day and had been born in Tuscaloosa on 8 October 1849.[10] The death notice also notes that Jane’s burial would be in Gatesville.
Jane’s father Samuel Dalton J. Moore was a West Point graduate and a Tuscaloosa lawyer and judge who served in the Alabama legislature and was a professor of mathematics at Mars Hill College.[11] Some sources including a Find a Grave memorial page for Samuel give his name as Samuel Dalton John Moore, but Jane’s death certificate, with the information surely supplied to the CSA Woman’s Home matron Mrs. Butter by Jane herself, makes me think his name was like Samuel Dalton Jewett Moore.[12]
c. James William Green was born 14 January 1851 in Bibb County. This date is inscribed on his tombstone in Green cemetery 2 in Bibb County.[13] The tombstone inscription reads,
In memory of James W. Green Esq.
Born Jan. 14 1851 Died Jan. 14 1920 Aged 69 years
No Mo No Da
He that believeth in me though he were Dead yet he shall live.
I have not found a marriage record for James W. Green. It appears he married around 1877, probably in Tuscaloosa County, where his wife Anna E. Brown, daughter of Randall Robison Brown and Mary Norris, was born and grew up.[14] By 1800, the couple were living in Bibb County where they appear on the federal census in that year near James’s widowed mother Sarah Echols Randolph Green — James was living in his parents’ household in 1870 — and brothers John Randolph and George Kerr Green.[15]
As noted previously, James William Green’s tombstone states that he died 14 January 1920. His death certificate states that he died at Fairfield in Jefferson County, Alabama, that his spouse was Annie E. Brown, and that his parents were James Green and Sarah Echols Randolph.[16] In a 10 May 1917 affidavit found in her file for the pension for which she applied for her husband’s Confederate service, James William Green’s sister Mary Caroline Green Caffee states that at that time, her brother James was living with her at Woodstock in Bibb County.[17]
Anna Brown Green’s tombstone in Green cemetery 2 in Bibb County states that she was born 31 March 1854 and died 14 November 1901.[18]
As the Esq. designation on James W. Green’s tombstone indicates, he was a justice of the peace in Bibb County.
d. Alice Jane Green was born in April 1853 in Bibb County, Alabama. The April 1853 birthdate is given on the 1900 federal census.[19] All other federal censuses up to the 1920 census, which has Alice born in 1854, suggest an 1853 birth year for Alice. Alice’s death certificate also indicates that she was born in 1853.[20]
On 18 December 1873 in Bibb County, Alice married John T. Hamilton.[21] John Hamilton gave bond for the marriage on 1 December with Alice’s brother James William Green, and the couple received license for the marriage on the same day.
I have been able to find little information about John T. Hamilton. He’s buried in Green cemetery 2 at Woodstock in Bibb County with his tombstone stating that he was born 15 October 1833 and died 12 April 1891.[22] He’s likely a John T. Hamilton found on federal censuses in Nansemond County, Virginia, from 1850-1870, whose mother’s name is given on the 1850 federal census as Mary A. Hamilton. John and Alice’s children reported Virginia as their father’s birthplace on various federal censuses.
The Bibb Blade Enterprise published a death notice for John T. Hamilton on Friday, 24 April 1891, stating that he was one of the “most useful and public spirited citizens” of Woodstock, and that he had died near Sylacauga, Alabama, and was buried in the Green grave yard the preceding Monday.[23]
Alice died at Woodstock in Bibb County on 21 July 1923, and was the widow of J.T. Hamilton.[24] The death certificate says that her parents were James and Alice Jane [sic] Green. I haven’t found a burial record for Alice, but would assume she’s buried along with husband John and brothers James and Samuel in Green cemetery 2 at Woodstock. If so, no tombstone record shows up in lists of those buried in this cemetery.
e. Samuel Hamilton Green was born 21 January 1856 in Bibb County and died 26 March 1870, also in Bibb County. These dates of birth and death are given on his tombstone in Green cemetery 2 at Woodstock in Bibb County.[25]
f. Mary Caroline Green was born 2 November 1859 in Bibb County, Alabama. Mary Caroline stated this birthdate in response to a 28 January 1927 letter from Bibb County probate judge W.L. Pratt which is filed with other documents in her application for a pension for her husband John Rucker Caffee’s Confederate service during the Civil War.[26] Mary Caroline also states this birthdate in her 4 December 1929 application for the pension, a digital copy of which is at a previous posting. Mary Caroline’s death certificate also says that when she died at Woodstock in Bibb County on 6 January 1939, she was aged 79 years, 4 months, and 3 days.[27]
On 11 September 1878, Mary Caroline Green married John Rucker Caffee, a brother of Ellen Matina Caffee who married Mary Caroline’s brother John Randolph Green (see above).[28] Rev. James Hogan solemnized the marriage, and both the marriage record and statements in Mary Caroline’s CSA widow’s pension application file state that the couple married at her parents’ house in Bibb County. The pension application gives the date as 12 September, though it’s 11 September in the county marriage record book.
Following their marriage, Mary Caroline and John R. Caffee lived with her widowed mother Sarah Randolph Green in the Green house that Mary Caroline’s grandfather John Green and his son John Ewing Green built southeast of Woodstock between 1830-4. As has been previously noted, Callie Green Caffee was the last Green family member to live in the house, and at her death, the house passed to a Hamilton family who sold it in 1946 to Ellis Davis Clouse.
As stated above, Mary Caroline Green Caffee’s death certificate states her date and place of death, and also says that her parents were James Green and Sarah Randolph and her husband was John Rucker Caffee. Mary Caroline’s application for a pension on her husband’s Civil War service says that he served in Co. A, Clanton’s brigade of Bedford’s division of the 8th Alabama Cavalry, during the Civil War.
John Rucker Caffee was born about 1847 in Bibb County and died there at Green Pond on 23 January 1882. Mary Caroline’s application for a pension for John’s CSA service states his date of death as 31 July 1879. But the Greensboro Watchman and Shelby Sentinel carried reports on 9 and 16 February that John R. Caffee had been accidentally killed on the 23rd ult. when he was “bossing” for Capt. Sharpe at Green Pond and his overcoat caught in a driving engine, pulling him into the machinery.[29] On 9 February 1882, the Bibb Blade reported that several mess-mates of J.R. Caffee during the Civil War — John Dobbins, Andrew Roland, James Roland, and Samuel Edmonds — had borne his body to the grave on the 23rd ult.[30] In May and June 1883, the Bibb Blade carried notices that Mary C. Caffee was selling real estate belonging to John R. Caffee, deceased, in Bibb County.
Following John R. Caffee’s death, on 12 April 1883, the Bibb Blade published a letter signed by someone signing only as J., which states that Mr. Jim Green, his mother, wife, and Mrs. John Caffee had gone into extensive silk worm raising and had several thousand worms on hand (see the images at the head of the posting). The letter concludes that there would soon be plenty of silk in Bibb County as a result.[31]
I have not found burial information for John and Mary Caroline Green Caffee. I suspect that they’re buried in Green cemetery 2 at Woodstock in Bibb County, but if so, listings of marked graves in that cemetery do not include them.
And a quick footnote to my previous posting about James Hamilton Green, father of the Green children discussed in this posting: the 1800 federal census shows two men named James Hamilton living in Pendleton District, South Carolina, six years before James Hamilton Green’s birth. I haven’t found records showing any connection of either of those James Hamiltons with the Green family, however. There were definitely Calhoun-Hamilton family ties: Ezekiel Calhoun (1770-1817), son of William Calhoun and Agnes Long of Abbeville District, South Carolina, married Frances Hamilton, daughter of Andrew Hamilton and Jane Magill of Abbeville District. Ezekiel Calhoun was a first cousin of Mary Calhoun Kerr, mother of Jane Kerr who married John Green.
Andrew Hamilton was son of Archibald Hamilton, who died before January 1794 in Augusta County, Virginia, with a will he made there on 20 July 1787.[32] Archibald is said to have been an Ulster Scots immigrant to the colonies, and his wife Frances is said to have been a Calhoun, but I have done too little research on this family to corroborate these claims.
I doubt that James Hamilton Green would have been named for the James Hamilton (1786-1857) who was a U.S. senator from South Carolina and governor of South Carolina, since that James Hamilton was not in the public eye by 1806 when James Hamilton Green was born.
[1] Alabama Department of Archives and History, Census or Enumeration of Confederate Soldiers Residing in Alabama, 1921, available digitally in Ancestry database Alabama, U.S., Census of Confederate Soldiers, 1907, 1921.
[2] Griff, “1863: WILLIAM N. GREEN TO JAMES H. GREEN,” at Spared & Shared blog.
[3] Bibb County, Alabama, Marriage Records Bk. F, p. 39; and loose-papers marriage records.
[4] John’s Confederate pension application file contains an 18 December 1924 letter written by Fred Johnson, assistant attorney general of Alabama, to John Purifoy of the Confederate home at Mountain Home, which states that John was admitted with wife Ellen about 7th December: Confederate pension file of John R. Green, available digitally at FamilySearch. John died the day after being admitted to the home. The pension file has a note John wrote on 15 (December?) 1913 from Woodstock to Hon. W.D. Pratt as John applied for a pension, with John telling Pratt, “I blong to Camp Claton at Blocton and have more Yank Bullitt marks on me than any other Old Reb in Bibb County to day.”
[5] See Find a Grave memorial page of John R. Green, Confederate Memorial Park cemetery 2, Chilton County, Alabama, created by Cemetery Walker, maintained by Melissa Hogan, with a tombstone photo by Norean Florence.
[6] Texas State Library and Archives, Confederate Pension Applications, 1899-1975, application of Mrs. J.M. Green, Erath County, file 1674, available digitally in Ancestry database Alabama, Texas and Virginia, U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958; and application of Mrs. Jane T. Green, Aransas County, file 24143, available digitally in the same Ancestry database.
[7] 1880 federal census, Bibb County, Alabama, Kingdom beat 1, p. 269 (dwelling/family 413, 30 June).
[8] Karen Taylor, “Gatesville City Cemetery, Part 2,” at the Coryell County, Texas GenWeb site.
[9] Texas Department of Health, Death Certificates, Travis County, 1936, file 23290.
[10] Austin American-Statesman (30 April 1936), p. 10, col. 2.
[11] George Washington Cullum and Edward Singleton Holden, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.: vol. 1: Nos. 1-1000 (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1891), p. 692; and William Garrett, Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama for Thirty Years, with an Appendix (Atlanta: Plantation Publishing Co., 1872), p. 122.
[12] See Find a Grave memorial page for Judge Samuel Dalton John Moore, burial details unknown, created by peter harris.
[13] Mike and Kim Clark, “Green Cemetery 2,” at the Bibb County GenWeb site. See also Find a Grave memorial page of James W. Green, Green cemetery 2, Bibb County, Alabama, created by Kathy.
[14] See Find a Grave memorial page of Randall Robison Brown, Mount Hope cemetery, Vance, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, created by Randy Stewart, with a tombstone photo by House Family Connections. The memorial page contains biographical information stating that Randall Robison Brown is actually buried at Hopewell cemetery in Tuscaloosa and the Mount Hope cemetery listing is an error. Obituaries of Randall R. Brown published in Birmingham Post-Herald (p. 3, col. 1) and Montgomery Advertiser (p. 3, col. 2)on 2 August 1899 both state that Randall R. Brown’s funeral was held at Hopewell church in Tuscaloosa. An obituary from an unidentified newspaper uploaded to the Find a Grave memorial page states that Randall R. Brown was buried in Hopewell cemetery following his funeral, and notes that his brother Newbern H. Brown was a member of the Alabama legislature and judge in Tuscaloosa County.
[15] 1880 federal census, Bibb County, Alabama, Kingdom beat 1, p. 269 (dwelling/family 410, 30 June).
[16] Jefferson County, Alabama, Death Certificates Vol. 4, roll 2, file 1607.
[17] Alabama Department of Archives and History, Confederate Pension Applications, 1880-1940, application of Mary Caroline Green Caffee, Bibb County.
[18] Mike and Kim Clark, “Green Cemetery 2,” at the Bibb County GenWeb site. See also Find a Grave memorial page of Annie Brown Green, Green cemetery 2, Bibb County, Alabama, created by Kathy. The latter source has Annie born — mystifyingly! — in Réunion, where I’m quite certain she never set foot from the time she was born in Tuscaloosa up to her death in 1901 in Bibb County.
[19] 1900 federal census, Bibb County, Alabama, p. 1B, Kingdom beat 1 (dwelling/family 17; 1 June).
[20] Bibb County, Alabama, Death Certificates, Vol. 28, roll 2, file 13750.
[21] Bibb County, Alabama, Marriage Record Bk. G, p. 97.
[22] Mike and Kim Clark, “Green Cemetery 2,” at the Bibb County GenWeb site. See also Find a Grave memorial page for John T. Hamilton, Green cemetery 2, Bibb County, Alabama, created by sherrien59.
[23] “Woodstock,” Bibb Blade Enterprise (24 April 24 1891), p. 3, col. 2.
[24] See supra, n. 19.
[25] Mike and Kim Clark, “Green Cemetery 2,” at the Bibb County GenWeb site. See also Find a Grave memorial page for Samuel Hamilton Green, Green cemetery 2, Bibb County, Alabama, created by Kathy.
[26] See supra, n. 17.
[27] See FamilySearch database, “Alabama Deaths, 1908-1974,” indexing and abstracting Alabama death certificates.
[28] Bibb County Marriage Record Bk. G, p. 275.
[29] “Over the State,” Shelby Sentinel (16 February 1882), p. 1, col. 5; “Alabama News,” Greensboro Watchman (9 February 1882), p. 2, col. 5. The Shelby paper gives the date as the 25th, but Bibb Blade corroborates the 23rd date: see infra.
[30] “Vance,” Bibb Blade (9 Feb 1882), p. 3, col. 2.
[31] Bibb Blade (12 April 1883),p. 3, col. 3-4.
[32] Augusta County, Virginia, Will Bk. 8, p. 82.
BEGATS AND BEQUEATHALS 
