Ezra Green - Diary of Ezra Green, M.D. from November 1, 1777, to September 27, 1778

From time to time he served as selectman, or as surveyor of the highways and by-ways, and now and then as moderator at the town-meetings, where the clashing parties of Federalists and Democrats met, with passionate party feelings, which at times raged with scarce controllable fury.

From active mercantile business in 1811, he sought that domestic quietude with his devoted wife and family he so fondly cherished, and there he largely indulged his taste in reading to their ever attentive ears. He was no hum-drum reader, but with a clear voice and superior elocutionary powers he rendered his various readings pleasingly attractive, and this was his fondest daily enjoyment, up to the very verge of his prolonged years.

My dear mother had but a feeble constitution, yet I never knew her depressed in spirits. Her well-stored, retentive memory made her society attractive to the old and young who frequented her house; and as a wife and mother, she was in all her duties watchfully diligent and greatly endeared by her family. Her life was that of a liberal Christian, and she awaited her exit from this world with patient resignation, and in the happy belief of an immediate entrance into a future life of endless duration and happiness; and thus she passed away, on the 3d of April, 1836, in the 77th year of her age.

During those early times it was the prevailing fashion, whatever the hour of a friendly call, to invite the guest to imbibe as he might prefer from the several potations before him. The custom was a pernicious one, and when the temperance societies sprung up, Dr. Green, though always a most temperate person, was the first to enter his name on the list of "total abstinents," not from the least necessary restrictive requirement on his part, but because he hoped it might prove an efficient example for many of his fellow-townsmen, who were more or less demoralized by this habitual indulgence.

He had no craving desire for official position or for public notoriety. He was, however, honored by several governors of the state with a commission as justice of the peace, and was also chosen one of the delegates at large, and chairman of the state convention for the adoption of the constitution of the United States. His vote gave a majority in its favor, an event of profound importance for New-Hampshire, to which the other assenting states were looking for this hoped for result, with no small doubt and distrust of feeling.

He had a fond taste for horticulture, and in his garden it was his daily enjoyment to spend a few hours in healthful exercise, where he gloried over his various fruits and delicacies. From his wife's farm of 150 acres, four miles from town, most of the staple necessaries of life were produced, so that at his table, where there was no needless waste, there was a sufficiency to satisfy the keenest appetite or most dainty palate. His garden at one time had more than thirty peach trees, most of which were killed by an untimely snow-storm in June, when they were in full blossom. The few which escaped during my boyhood I well remember for their luscious flavor.

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This was Susannah Hayes, whom he subsequently married.

Emmons's History U.S. Navy, 1776-1853.

The Queen of France, Providence and Ranger, all three under the same commanders, were sunk at Charleston, S.C., May 12, 1780, by the British Squadron, after that city had surrendered to the forces under Sir Henry Clinton.

The Rev. Dr. Lothrop's Centennial Sermon in Dover, N.H., June 28, 1846 (Appendix).