Beriah Green (1794-1874) was born in New England and attended Middlebury College and Andover Seminary. Although he did not graduate from the seminary, his later work reflected the values of that institution. Reverend Green published many sermons calling for missionary ministers to settle the west and make every town a 'bastion of virtue and piety.' In 1830, Reverend Green joined the faculty of Western Reserve College and he, his wife, and four children moved to Hudson.

Shortly after beginning his teaching in biblical studies and sacred languages, Green became an ardent abolitionist. While he had always believed slavery should be abolished, he did not support the idea of gradual emancipation and colonization. A major tenet of this idea was that newly freed slaves would be sent to a colony in West Africa (colonization). Instead, Beriah Green espoused immediate emancipation and American citizenship for all slaves (abolitionist or immediatism). These very different approaches to ending slavery had significant impact on Western Reserve College and Reverend Green was a prominent soldier in this conflict.

Reverend Green used his classroom and the pulpit to advocate his abolitionist view points. He counseled many students and converted him to his way of thinking. This brought him and several other faculty members into direct conflict with the College's Broad of Trustees who continued to support colonization. The three years of Green's tenure at WRC, were so divisive that enrollment and funding were negatively impacted and according to one historian, it "retarded the development of the college for the next twenty years."

In 1832-33, Green accepted an offer to head the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York. He accepted the Presidency under two conditions; he was free to preach immediatism and he could admit a student regardless of race. He capitalized on the abolitionist feelings at Oneida and worked to organized anti-slavery societies in other parts of New York as well as ensuring that the Institute itself was an 'abolitionist training camp.' His tenure at the Oneida Institute came to end when due to financial difficulties, he was forced to close the school and sell the land and buildings in 1844.

Reverend Green continued to advocate abolitionism in his sermons and writings. As the Civil War neared, he fell out of favor with many of his friends and struggled financially. He died in Whitesboro, New York, on May 4, 1874, while admonishing the Board of Excise to not grant any more liquor licenses.