James Sproat Green, son of College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) President Ashbel Green and his wife, Elizabeth Stockton Green, was born in Philadelphia on July 22, 1792. He had two siblings and one half-sibling: Robert Stockton Green (1787-1813), Jacob Green (ca. 1790-1842), and Ashbel Green (b. 1811). After graduating from Dickinson College in 1811, James Green moved to Princeton, New Jersey. He was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1817. He served as United States district attorney for New Jersey between 1829 and 1845, and President John Tyler unsuccessfully nominated him for secretary of the treasury in 1844. From 1847 to 1855, Green taught jurisprudence at the College of New Jersey. In 1825, he married Isabella Williamson McCulloh, and they had five children: Ashbel (1825-1898), Anna McCulloh (b. 1827), James Sproat (1829-1892), Robert Stockton (1831-1895, Governor of New Jersey, 1887-1890), and Isabella (1834-1906). James Sproat Green died on November 8, 1862.
From the guide to the James S. Green letters, Green, James S. letters, 1813-1818, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)
