GREEN
ART
COLLECTION
John Cleve Green (1800-1875) was a China trader, railroad entrepeneur and philanthropist. His great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Dickinson, was the first president of the College of New Jersey, which later became Princeton University.
Green attended the Lawrenceville School, then joined a New York firm specializing in overseas trade. In 1834, after spending ten years mostly at sea, he joined Russell & Company, the most powerful American house in the China trade. Within a year, Green, who moved easily within the hermetic business world of Canton, was head of the company's China operations, which exported tea, silk and opium.
Green returned to America with a sizable fortune, became president of the Bleeker Street Savings Bank and then invested successfully in railroads. He was a director of the great Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system and the New Jersey Central.
Green, whose three children died young, returned his wealth to the community through charitable endowments to hospitals, the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University. There he paid for three buildings, including the college's first library, three teaching chairs, and the John C. Green School of Science. Under Mr. Green's will, the Library received $50,000 in 1877, the net income to be "applied to the purchase and binding of books - one half to works relating to the Fine Arts."
Four years after Green's death, Robert Lenox Kennedy created the John C. Green Alcove at the Library (then located at University Place) with a stained glass window, furniture, a carved plaque and a portrait by Raimondo Madrazo. Much of the original alcove was moved to this building in 1937, where it is located at the east end of the twelfth stack level.
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