The Macon Telegraph and Messenger
Bibb County, Georgia
10 July 1881

Obituary
On the 13th day of June, 1881, James Mercer Green, M.D., for years one of
the most prominent, useful, distinguished and highly esteemed citizens of
Macon, passed from time to eternity. He was the son of William Green,
M.D., a native of Ireland, and graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, who,
driven from his native land, on account of his intense love of freedom and
of country (having participated in the rebellion of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald,) like numbers of his illustrious fellow exiles, found on these
shores a warm welcome and generous appreciation. While Sampson and Emmett
took high rank in the legal profession and Dr. Macnevin, became a leading
professor in one of the best medical schools of the country, Dr. William
Green was elected to the chair of mathematics in Franklin College,
University of Georgia in Athens. Dr. James Mercer Green was born in the
15th of November, 1815, and like his brothers, the late Drs. Thomas F. and
H. K. Green, was educated by his father, who was not only a faithful, but
highly competent instructor of youth. He taught his pupils to think and
to study, and their after career reflected the highest credit upon his
fidelity and skill. Thus equipped, the subject of this sketch entered
upon the study of his chosen profession, and having completed his
preparatory course to the satisfaction of the late Benj. A. White, of
Milledgeville, matriculated at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia,
where he graduated as doctor of medicine in the year 1837. Immediately
upon his graduation he returned to Macon, which had been his home since
1831, and entered upon the practice of his profession, in connection with
his brother, Dr. H. K. Green. Almost from the commencement, they had a
varied and extensive practice, and rapidly rose to prominence, in a
community that could boast of quite a number of able and accomplished
practitioners. After many years, when this professional connection was
dissolved, Dr. J. Mercer Green cotinued active practice on his own
account, and notwithstanding his numerous and exacting professional
engagements, he devoted much time and though to political duties, and for
one at least of the great public charities of the State, he was an earnest
worker to the day of his death. Like his eldest brother, Dr. Thomas
Fitzgerald Green, who for more than thirty years was connected in a
controlling capacity with the State lunatic asylum, he had a warm sympathy
for and an ardent desire to minister to the wants of the afflicted of his
race. He was the first to suggest the idea of establishing the Georgia
Academy for the Blind, located at Macon, and of whose board of directors
he was the first and only president. One of the officers of the
institution, entirely familiar with its history, thus writes: "Dr. Green
was a man whose benevolent instincts were largely developed. He ever
regarded human suffering and infirmity with compassionate feeling.
Institutions designed for the amelioration of the sufferings of these
classes of our fellow creatures, received a large measure of his study and
interest. He kept himself informed as to their special work, and was a
zealous advocate of their cause. This was notably the case as to the
Georgia Academy for the Blind. When in the 1851 Mr. Fortescue, a highly
educated blind young man, came to Macon for the purpose of organizing a
school for the blind in Georgia, bringing a letter of introduction from
Dr. Robley Dunglison, of Philadelphia, a warm personal friend of Dr.
Green, the letter cordially welcomed him, eagerly espoused his cause and
became a leading spirit in the measures which resulted in the organization
of the Georgia Academy for the Blind. Although at that time actively
engaged in the prosecution of his profession, and encumbered with a large
practice, he found time to exert all the influence he had, enlisting his
numerous friends by personal appeals and solicitations in behalf of the
enterprise. Preliminary meetings of the citizens were called to consider
the matter, before which he appeared with Mr. Fortescue, and bu his
intelligent and zealous influence, a temporary organization was formed for
the purpose of taking subscriptions to maintain the school and conducting
its business pro tem, he and his friends, through his agency, contributing
largely to the funds raised therefor. He was made a member of the board
of temporary trustees, and when the enterprise culminated in a chartered
State charity, he was named with N. C. Munroe, A. H. Chappell, John B.
Lamar, E. B. Weed, R. A. Smith and E. Graves as corporators, and when the
board was organized on June 23, 1852, he was elected as the president,
which office he held continually until his death, a period of nearly
thirty years. In his office as trustee and president of the board he ever
held a just appreciation of the proposed design of the institution, and
gave his earnest support to all measures designed specifically to promote
the same, and finding his highest gratification in its advancement and
success in this particular respect.

"During this period he was from his universally acknowledgeded fitness for
the position by a unanimous vote of his associates appointed attending
physician of the academy, and in that position fully merited and retained,
throughout this long period, the entire confidence of the trustees and
officers charged with the internal management of the establishment. To
the duties of this office, always varied and often perplexing, he gave the
most unremitting and assiduous attention, and they were discharged not
only with scrupulous fidelity, but with the highest skill. He had the
highest regard for his responsibilities in the offices he held; and in the
discharge of the various duties they imposed, he displayed eminent
qualifications and fitness, great zeal, activity and talent. His
connection with the Academy for the Blind will be long and gratefully
remembered by its friends and the people of the State, and the loss they
have sustained in the death of one of their earliest, most constant and
devoted friends, will be keenly felt and sincerely deplored."

Dr. Green had very exalted but very just views of the character and
learning of his profession, and he scrupulously guarded it from practices
that had a tendancy to lower its dignity and impair confidence in its
integrity. The foundation of all professional excellence is broad,
generous and extensive culture, and Dr. Green was a conspicuous example of
this truth. He was well read in history, philosophy and polite
literature. His acquaintance with the best of our English classics was
extensive and accurate.

There was nothing that affected the wellbeing of his country in which he
did not take an active interest. When the tocsin of war sounded and his
fellow citizens were summoned to the field in defense of right and
country, although in feeble health and over age, he cheerfully abandoned
the comforts of home and repaired to the scene of conflict, ministering to
the wants of the sick and wounded, and continued faithful in this work to
the end of the strife, at all times regardless of his own interest.

In 1846, Dr. Green was united in marriage to the eldest daughter of the
late Hon. Oliver H. Prince. She, after many years of wedded happiness,
with two only of their children, is left to cherish his memory and to
deplore their loss. But they are not as those who mourn without hope. In
early life he united with the Episcopal church, and for twenty years was
senior warden of Christ Church parish, Macon. Few men have had the good
fortune to leave behind them more pleasing and grateful memories. A
cenotaph more durable than marble is erected in the hearts of those whose
sufferings he alleviated and whose maladies he healed. This feeling
descending from them to their posterity will be a precious legacy to his
children and their descendants. A FRIEND.

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