Jonas & Jemima (Holden) Green

Fourth Generation

A military career of note began at age 24 when Jonas Green enlisted in Capt Humphrey Hobbs Company for Annapolis Royal, 28 May 1755 (removal of the French from Nova Scotia). This was prior to his first marriage.

His residence was listed as Pepperell in 1777, when he served as a private in Capt Brown’s Co., Col Michael Jackson’ Regt (The Bloody 8th Massachusetts) of the Continental Army from 4 Feb 1777 to 4 Feb 1780. He was 46 years of age - the Co. took part in action at Paoli, Germantown, Brandywine. On the muster rolls at Valley Forge 1777-1778, he was discharged 24 Oct 1779 with a disability -a musketball had passed through his body at Ticonderoga in 1777. He was awarded a monthly allowance of $1.66.


Born 15 Mar 1731, in Groton, Massachusetts, Jonas Green married twice - his first wife, Jemima Holden, was born 1 Jul 1732. They married 29 June 1758. She departed this life on 2 Mar 1772 (about 5 o’clock in the afternoon) aged 39 years, 7 months, 19 days, having given birth to 10 children in eleven years, including twins and triplets. Their children:
Betsy: b 23 Sep 1760
Nathaniel: b 31 Mar 1762 (twin)
Jonas: b 31 Mar 1762; d 2 Apr 1762 (twin)
Jemima: b 4 Mar 1764
Lydia: b 19 Oct 1765
* Jonas: b 15 Oct 1767 (triplet)
Josiah: b 15 Oct 1767 (triplet)
Reuben: b 15 Oct 1767; d 17 Oct 1767 (triplet)
Abigail:b 5 Sep 1769
Rachel: b 12 Jul 1771

The children’s parents were members of the Church of Christ in Groton. Church membership records dated 5 July 1761 listed Jonas and Jemima among “those that own the covenant”. The birth of their triplets was an unusual enough occurrence to merit a note to that effect in the early church records. The meeting house where the family went to worship was situated on land once owned by the first Green settler in Groton, Jonas’ great-grandfather, William.

Jonas’ second wife, Abigail Nevers, was born 7 Apr 1756, she was twenty-five years younger than her new husband. She, too, gave birth to 10 children over the next nineteen years:
Joshua: b 23 Aug 1776
Guy: b 23 Aug 1778 Tyngsborough, MA
Hannah: b 1 May 1780
Asa: b 31 Jan 1782
Jonathan: b 7 May 1784
Hannah: b 19 Feb 1786
Polly: b 2 Oct 1788
David: b 6 May 1791
Rebecca:b 19 Apr 1793
Nathaniel: b 10 Jul 1795

We presume the family removed to Maine between the years 1793 & 1795 as the record of Rebecca’s birth is in Groton & Nathaniel was born in Farmington in 1795. The Green family settled in Wilton, Maine.

Jonas Green died in 1814 in Wilton, Maine; he is buried in Red Schoolhouse Cemetery, West Farmington, Maine. (Many of the old graves were moved there from an old cemetery in Wilton near the Green Farm). Abigail Green died 1 Feb 1819.