Greene, Paul Wheeler, 1827-1854

Paul Wheeler Greene (1827-1854), the son of Benoni Greene (1797-1856) and Gracy Clark Green (1799-1867), was raised in Richmond, Ontario County, New York. Benoni Greene was raised in Wardsboro, Vermont, and taught school at Malta and Ballsboro, New York, before marrying and moving to Richmond where he farmed. His son Paul Greene attended a district school until 1846 after which he attended New York academies: East Bloomfield Academy, Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, Cortland Academy at Homer, and Aurora Academy at Aurora. With a letter of recommendation by the Aurora Academy principal Otis E. Wood attesting to his abilities as a teacher of languages, particularly Latin and Greek, Greene went to Grenada, Mississippi, on 14 October 1851. There, he and a neighbor, M. S. Hamilton, opened a school called Rural Academy. After eight months, he contracted malaria. Moving to another location in the same county did not improve his health, and he returned to New York on 23 November 1852. There he taught at Naples, New York, and was an ardent temperance worker. He began the study of law in the spring of 1854 in Danville, New York, but his malaria returned and he died suddenly in December 1854.