Jacob Green (1722–1790) and William Green (1788–1851) were two writers who shared a surname but lived in different countries and eras.
Jacob Green was an American Presbyterian minister, educator, and public figure. Born in Malden, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard College in 1744 and became pastor of the Presbyterian church in Hanover, New Jersey. An enthusiastic supporter of the Great Awakening revivals, he served in New Jersey's revolutionary congress and was a trustee of Queen's College, now Rutgers University. His writings—chiefly sermons, pamphlets, and educational works—include some of the earliest American arguments against slavery, in which he urged the emancipation of enslaved Africans.
William Green was an English clergyman and miscellaneous writer. As vicar of Hillingdon in Middlesex, he combined parish duties with a busy literary life, contributing poems, essays, and reviews to the leading periodicals of his day. His best-known books are The Wanderer's Legacy (1829), a collection of poems on varied subjects, and The Sports and Games of Animals (1834), an engaging early study of play behaviour in the animal world.
Though separated by an ocean and a generation, both Greens shared a dual identity as men of the church and men of letters.