Greene, Gilbert J.

Born: 1833-04-27 Ramapo, New York

Died: 1906-12-12 Highland Mills, New York

Gilbert J. Greene was a printer, clerk, compositor, U.S. marshal, and dispatch carrier. He lost his father when he was very young and began an apprenticeship as a printer in Goshen, New York. Afterward, he served as a journeyman compositor for the New York Tribune. By 1850, Gilbert J. Greene was working as a clerk on a Mississippi steamboat, although he made his home in northern Illinois near Beloit, Wisconsin. Later that year, he took a job tutoring a boy in Jackson, Tennessee. A member of the Free Soil movement, Greene soon fell out of favor with his Memphis neighbors and fled for Cairo, Illinois. Because winter had set in, Greene decided to journey by foot to his home in the northern part of the state. During his journey, he delivered some paperwork to Abraham Lincoln from a client, Jacob Strause. Lincoln paid for Greene to stay a night in the Globe Tavern and arranged for his accommodations in Peoria. Later that decade, Greene worked as a compositor for the Illinois State Journal in Springfield. During the Civil War, Greene served in the 49th New York Regiment before Lincoln appointed him marshal for Winchester, Illinois, and as a dispatch carrier.

Gilbert J. Greene, Lincoln the Comforter (Hancock, NY: Herald Press, 1916).