Green Hill Parkway
From Worcester Activist wiki
Three physicians, all named Dr. John Green, looked after the health of Worcester residents for more than 100 years.
The remarkable Green family is the story of one family’s devotion to an ancestral estate that grew to about 600 acres.
It begins with Capt. Samuel Green of Malden and Leicester.
He left one son, Thomas. When Thomas was 17, his parents left him in
Leicester wilderness to look after cattle while they returned to Malden. He
became seriously ill; kept himself alive by milking a cow which came to
feed a calf which he had tied near his shelter-an over hanging ledge.
Neighbors finally got word to the father, who brought the boy back to Malden-four days on horseback..
From the Indians, Thomas Green learned the cunning of roots and herbs: became a successful physician.
One of his seven children was the first Dr. John Green, who settled on the Green Hill estate.
Dr. Green had 12 children, one of whom became Dr. John Green the second. The Second Dr. Green had 11 children, the oldest becoming Dr. John Green the third. The latter founded Worcester Public Library.
“Not to have seen him (Dr. Green the third) under that brown, broad- trimmed, soft hat as he rolled from side to side in that old, time-honored gig, through the streets of the village, town and city, was to have missed one of the most striking institutions of Worcester,” wrote Benjamin Franklin Thomas, a fellow member of the Worcester Fire Society.
Elijah, another son of the first John Green, became a lawyer and a founder of the Blackstone Canal. He was married four times. A son by his third wife was Andrew Haswell Green.
Andrew became famous as one of the men who smashed the corrupt Tweed Ring in New York. As commissioner of Central Park and holder of other offices, he beautified Morningside, Riverside in Manhattan, the boulevards of upper New York; won the name of “Father of Greater New York.”
In 1905, the last owners of Green Hill offered it to Worcester for the valuation of $104,000. They also contributed $50,000 toward the purchase price.
The only stipulation was that it be used forever as a public park and be called Green Hill.
Green Hill parkway, which runs from Crescent street east to Worcester’s largest park, honors a family which Worcester will always remember. It was named in 1845.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
