BERNARD RICHARDSON GREEN
GREEN, BERNARD RICHARDSON, civil engineer, is a man whose name is indissoliibly linked with the construction of some of the finest of the public buildings of our government at Washington. As long as the State, War and Navy building, the Monument, and the Library of Congress stand, his scientific knowledge, his constructive skill and the thoroughness with which he carried out the designs, some of which he helped to form or to modify, will have enduring witness. He says, "the young man who attends strictly and thoughtfully to his own business and endeavors to improve it for his employer's sake, makes himself indispensable. He who also reads books of history, biography and technical works on his own business or profession, and who cultivates good morals and gentlemanly conduct, laying up little by little his gains in knowledge, ability and money, will profit greatly in the long run by the law of geometrical progression. Think more at first of becoming able and valuable than of gaining money."
Mr. Green was born at Maiden, Massachusetts, December 28, 1843. His father, Ezra Green, a mariner and farmer, is remembered as a man of "sturdy integrity, sound common sense, broad and charitable views and practical intelligence," and is the descendant of a line of New England ancestors extending back to the settlement of Boston before 1634, who for two hundred and fifteen years have owned and lived on the same estate in Maiden, Massachusetts. He was an active boy, with a taste for drawing, science and mechanics, manifested early in the successful construction of wind and water mills, kites, and toy ships. From fifteen to eighteen he worked on the farm in summer, attending a private academy in the winter. He took a course of professional study at Lawrence scientific school, Harvard, and received the degree of Bachelor of Science, 1863.
From 1863 until 1870, as draftsman and assistant engineer on sea-coast fortifications, and in light house construction and river and harbor improvements, he was intimately connected with several distinguished officers of the United States corps of engineers, under
