Page:Biographical Memoir of Samuel George Morton - George Bacon Wood.djvu/8

 out his whole professional life, maintained with him a frequent and friendly intercourse.

The delineation which follows is necessarily in miniature; for, independently of the comparatively short time which can be devoted to such communications in the business of the College, the pages of our journal, to which it is customary in the end to consign them, are too limited to receive in its fulness a portraiture which might readily be made to occupy volumes. I shall, however, endeavor, by excluding irrelevant commentary, and by expressing myself as concisely as possible, to introduce within the limits assigned the greatest practical amount of biographical matter.

Dr. Morton sprang from a highly respectable family, residing at Clonmell, in Ireland. His father, George Morton, the youngest of four brothers, emigrated at the age of sixteen to this country, with another brother somewhat older, who soon afterwards died. He settled in Philadelphia, and, having acquired the requisite experience in a counting-house in a subordinate capacity, afterwards engaged in mercantile business on his own account. Here he married Jane Cummings, a lady having a birthright in the religious Society of Friends, which, according to a well-known rule of that Society, she lost upon her marriage with one who was not a member, Mr. Morton belonging to the English Church. He died on the 27th of July, 1799, leaving his widow with three children, a daughter and two sons, the youngest of whom was the subject of the present sketch, and at that time an infant in arms. The older boy, James, was soon afterwards sent to an uncle in Ireland, who adopted him; but he died before maturity. The sister still survives to lament the loss of both her brothers.

Dr. Morton was born on the 26th of January, 1799, and was consequently about six months old at the death of his father. In her bereavement the widow sought consolation in religion, and still entertaining the faith in which she had been educated, applied for restoration of membership in the Society of Friends, and was received. With a view to be near a beloved sister, she removed from Philadelphia to West Chester, in the State of New York, but a few miles from the metropolis, where her sister resided. Wishing that her children should be brought up in her own religious faith, and surrounded in early life by those safeguards which are eminently provided by the discipline of Friends, she sought for their admission