Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/456

418 December of that year was appointed one of the executive council. During the Revolution he ad- hered to the crown, and in 1776 his estate was confiscated. His plate and furniture were sold at auction a few years later. He returned to England and died there. — His wife, Mary Philipse, b. in the Philipse Manor House, on Hudson river, in 1730 ; d. in York, England, in 1825, was the daughter of Frederick Philipse, the second lord of the Manor. She was carefully educated and en- joyed all the advan- tages of the society that frequented her father's home. She is described as of great personal beau- ty, with dark eyes and hair, and as full of imperious yet kindly impulses. In the winter of 1756 she visited in New York her brother-in- law, Beverly Rob- inson, and met there George Washing- ton, who was also a guest of Mr. Rob- inson. Her charms made a deep impression on the heart of the Virginia colonel, whose suit she is said to have declined, but his papers dis- prove the assertion. She married Roger Morris in 1758, and they erected on the outskirts of New York the mansion that was subsequently, after the con- fiscation act, the headquarters of Washington, and for many years the residence of Madame Jumel (q. v.). In a conversation with one of the descendants of Mrs. Morris, a contemporaneous writer remarked how different would have been her fate had she married Washington. " You mistake, sir," was the reply ; " she had immense influence over every- body, and had she become the wife of the leader of the rebellion he would not have been a traitor ; she would have prevented it." Mrs. Morris in- herited a large estate, part of which was a tract of land in Putnam county, N. Y., including Lake Mahopac, and she was in the habit of visiting her tenants semi-annually till the Revolution, occu- pying a log-house, which Washington also at a later period appropriated for his headquarters, as he had done the family mansion near New York. In this retreat she was much beloved by the set- tlers, whom she instructed in household and re- ligious duties. Although she was revered she was also somewhat feared by them, and the upper story of the mill that adjoined her residence was crowded with worshippers on Sundays when "Madam "was likely to be present. At the beginning of the Revo- lution slie fell under suspicion as a loyalist, and in the autumn of 1776 her property was confiscated, and she was forced to fly with her family to Bev- erly, on the Hudson, the country-seat of Beverly Robinson. It is believed that Mrs. Morris, her sister, Mrs. Robinson, and the wife of the Rev. Charles Inglis, were the only women that were attainted of treason during the Revolution. But the attorney-general of England having decided that the property of the children, at the decease of the parents, was not included in their attainder, and recoverable under the principles of law and right, in 1809 the children of Roger Morris and his wife sold their reversionary interest to John Jacob Astor, of New York, for £20,000, and the British government made them an additional compensa- tion of £17,000. Mrs. Morris went to England with her husband. A monument is erected over their remains in St. Saviour-gate church, York. Of their children, Henry Gage and Amherst were captains in the royal navy.

MORRIS, Samuel, lay preacher, b. in Hanover county, Va., about 1700; d. there after 1770. He had been educated in the established church, but became a Presbyterian, and did so much to ad- vance the interests of his denomination that he was styled the " Father of Presbyterianism in Virginia." His house became the resort of all those that were dissatisfied with the teaching of the parish incumbent, and when at length it be- came too small to hold the congregations that assembled there to hear him teach and exhort, he built what he termed a " reading-room." The Episcopalians then made complaint against Morris and his followers, and called them up for trial ; but they appealed to Gov. William Gooch, who, on hearing the case, and finding that their practices were identical with those of the Kirk of Scotland, in which he had been brought up, dismissed the charges against them.

MORRIS, Thomas, senator, b. in Augusta county, Va., 3 Jan., 1776; d. in Bethel, Ohio, 7 Dec, 1844. His father was a Baptist clergyman of Welsh descent. The son removed to Columbia, Ohio, in 1795, entered the service, as a farm-hand, of Rev. John Smith, first U. S. senator from Ohio, and in 1800 settled in Clermont county. Whil& engaged in farming he studied law, and in 1804 was admitted to the bar. He was elected to the legislature in 1806, was continuously a member for twenty-four years, became eminent in his profes- sion, was a judge of the supreme court, and was chosen U. S. senator in 1832. He was an ardent opponent of slavery, engaged in important debates with John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay in defence of the right of petition and the duty of the gov- ernment to favor abolition, and was active in sup- port of the freedom of the press. His anti-slavery sentiments being distasteful to the Democratic- party, by whom he was elected, he was not returned for a second term, and in March, 1839, he retired. He was nominated for vice-president by the Liberal party at the Buffalo convention in August, 1844. His death occurred a month after the election. Mr. Morris was an energetic politician, and a fearless champion of liberty and the right of individual opinion. See his " Life and Letters," edited by his^ son, Benjamin F. Morris (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1855). — His son, Jonathan D., congressman, b. in Clermont county, Ohio, in 1804 ; d. in Connersville, Ind., 16 May. 1875, became a lawyer, and for twenty years was clerk of the court of common pleas, and of the superior court of Clermont county. He was elected to congress as a Democrat in 1846, served in 1847-'51, and subsequently returned to the practice of his profession. — Another son, Isaac Newton, congressman, b. in Bethel, Clermont co., Ohio, 22 Jan., 1812; d. in Quincy, 111., 29 Oct., 1879, was educated at Miami university, was admitted to the bar in 1835, and the next year removed to Quincy, 111. He was in the Illinois legislature in 1846-'8, and became president of the Illinois and Michigan canal board. He was elected to congress as a Democrat in 1856, and served in 1857-'61, opposing the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution, and offering a resolution that " under no circumstances shall the Union be dissolved." In 1870 he was appointed by President Grant a member of the Union Pacific railroad commission.