Joshua Green (seaman and banker)

Joshua Green (October 16, 1869 – January 24, 1975) was an American sternwheeler captain, businessman, and banker. He rose from being a seaman to being the dominant figure of the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet, then sold out his interests and became a banker. Living to the age of 105 and active in business almost to the end of his life, he became an invaluable source of information about the history of Seattle and the Puget Sound region. According to Nard Jones, Green was one of the city of Seattle's last fluent speakers of Chinook Jargon, the pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest.

Born in Mississippi, Joshua came with his family to the Puget Sound region of Washington in 1886 at the age of 17. The family formed a connection with Seattle mayor Bailey Gatzert, who helped Green begin his career. He worked as a chainman, surveying for the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway, then on the sternwheeler Henry Bailey, a Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet vessel that also went up the Skagit River.

In late 1889, using a $5,000 loan from Seattle banker Jacob Furth, an associate of Gatzert's, Green and three fellow officers of the Henry Bailey purchased their own sternwheeler, the Fanny Lake (or Fannie Lake). Bill Speidel describes it as "…a funny little thing… She looked like a scow with a big box, topped by a smaller box, topped by a deluxe model outhouse."

Green's innovative business practices soon allowed him to become a fleet owner, president of what was named the La Conner Trading and Transportation Company, owning some rather more elegant vessels, such as the sidewheeler George E. Starr. He established Seattle's dominance of the Mosquito Fleet, relative to Olympia or Tacoma, which Speidel considers to be a key factor in Seattle's emerging and continued dominance of the Puget Sound region. He continued to be a master and captain, serving on several of his own company's sternwheelers.

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