Beriah Green Jr. (March 24, 1795May 4, 1874) was an American reformer, abolitionist, temperance advocate, college professor, minister, and head of the Oneida Institute. He was "consumed totally by his abolitionist views". He has been described as "cantankerous". Former student Alexander Crummell described him as a "bluff, kind-hearted man," a "master-thinker". Early life Greene was born in Preston, Connecticut, son of Beriah Green (1774–1865) and Elizabeth Smith (1771–1840). His father was a cabinet and chair maker. The family moved to Pawlet, Vermont, in 1810, and he may have attended the Pawlet Academy. In 1815 he enrolled in the Kimball Union Academy, in New Hampshire. He graduated from Middlebury College in 1819, where he was valedictorian, and then studied to become a missionary (minister) at Andover Theological Seminary (1819–20). However, his religious beliefs did not agree with any denominational creed. Career Because of financial need, he began teaching at Phillips Academy, also in Andover, Massachusetts. Suffering from health and vision problems, he left the seminary. After recovering, in January 1821 he married Marcia Deming of Middlebury, Vermont, and was briefly in the service of the Missionary Board in Lyme, Connecticut, and on Long Island. Having been ordained, in 1823 he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Brandon, Vermont. In 1826 his wife died, leaving him with two children, and the same year he married Daraxa Foote, also of Middlebury, who outlived Beriah. In 1829 he accepted a call to the distinctly "orthodox" (conservative) church of Kennebunk, Maine, but the next year left, to become a professor of sacred literature (Bible) in the one-man theological department of Western Reserve College and Preparatory School, in Hudson, Ohio, from Cleveland. The buildings of this "Yale of the West" — Green calls it that — imitated those of Yale College. It had the same motto, "Lux et Veritas" (Light and Truth), the same entrance standards, and almost the same curriculum. It aspired to be as intellectually outstanding as Yale as well. For the time, it was well funded. It was a prestigious appointment. The topic of slavery In the Cleveland area (the "Connecticut Western Reserve") Beriah came in contact with more African Americans than he had in Vermont or Maine. The college first admitted an African American student in 1832, John Sykes Fayette; he graduated in 1836. Three other African-American students — Richard W. Miller, Samuel Nelson, and Samuel Harrison — were also admitted