Sterling Green    

Green, Sterling, Kinzua P.O., Elk, was born in Pine Grove October 1, 1816, and the oldest of ten children of Seth W. and Sarah (Portman) Green. Seth W. Green came from the Eastern States, settled at Pine Grove about the year 1813, where he married his wife, Sarah Portman, and lived there a number of years engaged in lumbering, and running the same down the river, sometimes as far as New Orleans. His mode of coming back was in a barge as far as Pittsburgh, thence in a keel boat to Warren, taking three months to make the trip. After living a few years in Pine Grove he moved to Morrison’s Flats, below Warren. From there he moved in canoes to the head of Kinzua valley, then known as Morrison’s Mills, owned by James, Ephraim, and Samuel Morrison. He finally moved one mile below, on Sugar Run; engaged in farming until his death, which occurred August 8, 1848, at the age of fifty-six years. He left a family of ten children, who are as follows: Sterling, Wellington, Lloyd, Sarah Jane, Thomas, Artemus, William, James, Jesse, and Mary Ann. Sterling Green, the oldest son, in 1842 started in the lumber business with M. McCullough, of Pittsburgh, and A.H. Summerton, of Warren, at the Hazeltine Mills, one mile below Corydon. Afterward, in 1848, he assumed proprietorship of the Morrison House, in Warren, formerly kept by Richard Orr. Two years later he bought land in Kinzua and moved there, where he built the first hotel in 1851, which made a comfortable home for lumbermen and travelers. His first wife was Polly Cornelius Fogies. Their children were J. Wesley, George W., James S., Sarah J., and Mary Ann, the two last named dying before they reached womanhood. On March 23, 1878, his wife died of heart disease. Three years after he married Mrs. Doctress Louisa Green, of Jamestown, N.Y. The life of Sterling Green has been a varied experience of pioneer hardships incident to a first settler. He commenced when fifteen years of age to go with his, father to Pittsburgh on rafts, and to push back in a canoe, a tiresome operation of two weeks time, or more, lying on the shores at night and pushing against the current all day a canoe loaded down with provisions and articles for family use, there being in those primitive days no steamboats or railroads. In after years he became one of the leading merchants of Kinzua; was postmaster for eighteen years; frequently held town offices, and is now, at the age of seventy, one of the trustees of the M. E. Church society.

History of Warren County: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, J. S. Schenck, Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Co., 1887.  More Warren County History Books  Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!  Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.