Philip Greene

Taken from minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the year 1870 Vol XIII Pub.New York

Philip Greenewas born in the town of Warwick, Kent County, R. I., July 17, 1789. He was the tenth child of John and Mary Greene. When he was five [sic. seven] years old his father removed from Rhode Island to the Northwest Territory and settled at what is now Belpre, where he remained two years; then removed seventeen miles up the river to a place now called Newport, in Washington County, Ohio, where some of his relatives yet live. In that early day an Indian war* was on hand, and scarcely any literary advantages to be had; the land was heavily wooded; farms had to be made in the forest, the country defended, and family wants supplied by dint of industry and care. Under such circumstances the venerable Father Greene got his education. God knew the toils and labors that our fathers would have to endure with cultivating Immanuel's fields, and wisely called the men inured to hardship to do the work.
In his youth Father Greene had been a wild boy, and fond of fun; and readily shook off his convictions and the instructions of pious friends until affliction and the death of a dear friend aroused his slumbering fears, which brought him to a full sense of his lost condition. His energy of character, as seen in after life began to be seen. He sought a home in the Methodist Episcopal Church near Newport, Ohio, joining as a probationer on June 18, 1813. In July of the same year, he was converted at a camp-meeting near Parkersburg, Va., and at once commenced praying with and exhorting sinners whenever he had opportunity. His labors were owned and blessed by God in the awakening of many souls, so that, on the 26th day of July 1814, J. C. Hatton gave him license to exhort; and in July 1816, David Young gave him a license to preach, which he faithfully used for one year, when he entered the traveling connection, and continued forty-four years as an itinerant, doing the work of an evangelist.
Father Greene's a talents were of the solid and useful kind, rather than ornamental; his speech was plain, and to the point, and his arguments were biblical. The ground he occupied extended from the head-waters of the Kanawha and the Monogahela to Lake Erie, the head of the Muskingum and its tributaries and the Alleghanies in Ohio, in Pittsburgh and West Virginia Conferences. His circuits were large, often three and four hundred miles round and from twenty to thirty preaching places in four weeks; often no roads, but paths with marks on trees for a guide; log-cabins for a home, course fare  and from $100 to $250 for [yearly] salary for himself and family; many deep and rapid waters to cross without bridges or ferries. One day with his family was often all that he could spare from his work in a round. No storms- either from the clouds, men, or devils - could change his mind, or stop him in his course. He had declared war against sin, and made no compromise with it either in high of low places. He was a man of kind feelings and warm heart. He loved his friends and the Church more that life; and now standing rebuke to every timid and ease-loving Methodist preacher. I have known him long and well, and for any appointment in particular, or for easy work, went to them as an obedient son in the Gospel, and did his work to the best of his ability. God owned him; and, through poor, he never wanted. He died near Lumberport, Harrison County, W. Wa., January 24, 1869, in full possession of all his mental powers, in a great old age, happy in God.