Fortune has ever favored those who put forth systematic and persistent effort in whatever field of legitimate endeavor and the farmer, as the man of commerce, who navigates a craft with a safe rudder and a strong sail weathers every gale and “brings to” with his cargo unimpaired. Figurative though this declaration is, it applies with force to the gentleman in the introduction of this review, whose steady growth and final reaching of the goal of substantial success has followed in the footsteps of those who have blazed the trees and exposed the landmarks along the highway of victory. Marion Green has never ceased to labor and although wealth has not amassed itself on his hands lavishly his constant diggings in the soil has placed him in view of the “home stake” marking the end of the course of his race with fate.
Although a citizen of Texas for the past thirty-one years Mr. Green has added his presence to the rural community of Wise county only since the year 1890 and in these fifteen years has his financial victory been chiefly won. He turned the soil of Grayson, Hunt and Panola counties, respectively, prior to his advent to Wise and it was in the last named county that he first established himself when received as a citizen by the Lone Star state. He left his native county Conecuh, in Alabama, at twenty years of age, and farmed a year each in Choctaw counties, Alabama and Mississippi. He had obtained no education worth the name, and a body filled with industry was all the capital he possessed. When nothing better offered he sold it in the labor markets and used its earnings toward placing himself where he could, eventually, maintain himself as an independent farmer. In addition to the counties above named he also passed a few years in Collin and Denton, subsequent to his marriage, and it was from the latter county that he crossed the line into Wise.
The nucleus of his present farm embraced ninety acres of the Margaret Swift survey, but his two hundred and forty acre tract was completed by additions from the Anderson and Moore surveys. With it all under fence and in cultivation he is among the large farmers of his locality. His improvements are modern and permanent and his premises attractive and few homes offer greater satisfaction and contentment to their owner than his.
Marion Green was born July 12, 1852, and was a son of Christopher C. W. Green, a farmer and a native of the same county and state. His father was born in 1818 and died where he had lived, in 1885. He was a son of John Green who was born in South Carolina, migrated to Georgia in early life and finally settled in Conecuh county, Alabama, where he passed away about 1882. The family is a distinguished one of colonial times and some of its sons fought in the patriotic armies of the American Revolution. Christopher Columbus W. Green, great-grandfather of our subject was one of these and he was under General Nathaniel Green, a relative and the hero of the battle of Guilford Court House and of a masterly retreat through Virginia during the war.
John Green married Jane Jones and was the father of seven sons and as many daughters. He accompanied his patriot father from South Carolina to Macon, Georgia, near which place the old Virginian lies buried. Christopher C. W. Green, one of his sons, married Frances Watson, a daughter of George Watson, who, with five brothers, was an Indian fighter of the early days and all but two of whom were slain by the red man’s hand. The issue of his marriage were: Thomas L., who was killed in the Seven Day’s fight in the Civil War; Alexander H., of Pensacola, Florida; Narcissa, Susana and George, who passed away unmarried; Marion, of this sketch; John C., of Florida; Elizabeth, deceased, single, the youngest of the list. Mrs. Green died in 1871 and her husband took a second wife, nee Jane Rhoades, who bore him several children, how young men and women in Alabama.
C. C. W. Green, Jr., was a farmer in comfortable circumstances and a citizen of standing in his county. He was reared a Democrat and believed in the justice of the cause of secession and filled a place in the ranks of the Home Guard during the Confederate war.
Marion Green was a single man when he reached Grayson county, but November, 1876, he married there Margaret, a daughter of Charles Reddell, a native of the state of Arkansas. Of the issue of this union, Frank married Lue Morgan, and resides in Denton county; C. W. married Eva McNeal, and owns a farm joining his parents; Fannie was the wife of W. L. Wright and died in October, 1905, and Ida P. married Ellis Smith; Thomas, Lillie A., Robert, Monroe, George Homer and Grady Cordell comprise the Rooseveltian family. Mr. Green is a Methodist and his wife a Baptist. Democracy is the political watchword of the whole family.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 395-396.