Occupation Master Distiller, | Known for Jack Daniel's | |
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Children Moriah Green, Jesse Green, Edde Green, John Green | ||
Nearis Green (c.1820–1890), also spelled Nearest, was an enslaved African-American master distiller who taught distilling techniques to Jack Daniel, founder of the Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey distillery.
Biography
Sometime in the 1850s, when Jack Daniel was a boy, he went to work for a preacher, grocer and distiller named Dan Call. According to company lore, the preacher was a busy man, and when he saw promise in young Jack, he taught him how to run his whiskey still. However, on June 25, 2016, The New York Times published a story identifying the true teacher as Green, one of Call's slaves. The newspaper said that the Green story has been known to historians and locals for decades, even as the distillery officially ignored it. Although, Green’s story — built on oral history and the thinnest of archival trails — may never be definitively proved.
Green was one of a few slaves owned by Call who stayed on even after earning their freedom. When introducing Green to an 8-year old Jack Daniel, Call is quoted as saying, "Uncle Nearest is the best whiskey maker that I know of." Call is then quoted as saying to Green, "I want [Jack] to become the world's best whiskey distiller - if he wants to be. You help me teach him." Green served as master distiller on the property. Known as Nearis Green, Nearest Green, “Uncle Nearis,” "Uncle Nearest," Green also played the fiddle and was a lively entertainer who sang with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. “Only a few years older than Jack, (Green) taught him all about the still.”
Slavery ended with ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865, and Daniel opened his distillery a year later, immediately employing two of Green’s sons. In all, at least three of Green's sons were a part of the Jack Daniel Distillery staff: Ott Green, Charlie Green, and Eli Green.
Nearis Green was married to Harriet Green and had eleven children, nine sons and two daughters. Seven of those sons and both daughters are listed in the 1880 federal census.