Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/671

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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induce him to vote "Nay."' He withstood their efforts and by his favorable vote se- cured that unanimity of action so essential to colonial success and gave to Pennsylvania the proud name of the "Keystone State." John Morton did not live to see the result of his action, although he lived a few months after signing the declaration. He died in April, 1777, aged fifty-three years. To his neighbors who had ostracized him and who had withdrawn their friendship on account of his vote he sent this message from his bedside : "Tell them they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it to have been the most glorious service that I ever rendered to my country." He was the first of the signers to die. After the battle of Brandywine the British army, in passing through the region of his home, despoiled his residence, damaging property of his widow and children to the value of three hundred and sixty-five pounds.

About the year 1764, Mr. Morton was commissioned as a justice of the peace, and was sent as a delegate to the general assem- bl}' of Pennsylvania. Of this body, he was for many years an active and distinguished member, and for some time the speaker of the house of representatives. The follow- ing year he was appointed by the house to attend the general congress in Xew York. In 1766, Mr. Morton was appointed sherifif of Chester county, an office he continued to hold for the three following years. Some time after, he was elevated to a seat on the bench in the superior court of Pennsylvania. Of the memorable congress of 1774 he was a member and continued to represent the state of Pennsylvania in the National As- sembly through the memorable session of that body which gave birth to the Declara- tion of American Independence. This branch of the Morton family was among the first Swedish emigrants who located them- selves on the banks of the Delaware, in the year 1654, in Ridley township, Chester (now Delaware) county, Pennsylvania, where John IVIorton was born in 1724. In the third generation his great-granddaughter, .\nna Mary Morton Brown, married Captain Alex- ander Hamilton Fultz — John Morton Fultz being the eldest child of this marriage.

Along paternal lines the ancestors of Air. Fultz were Virginians, seated early in Albe- marle and .Augusta counties, having emi- grated from York, Pennsylvania, in 1788.

His grandfather, Judge David Fultz, the son of Frederick and Hannah (Hanger) Fultz, was born at Staunton, Virginia, May 4, 1802. Judge Fultz studied law with Judge Hugh Holmes, of Staunton, and was an emi- nent lawyer, jurist and farmer — a man of learning and high standing. He was a mem- ber of the constitutional convention of 1850, and judge of the circuit court of Augusta, Rockbridge, Highland and Rockingham counties. He married, in 1825, Margaret Ann Leas, of Staunton, the daughter of Jacob and Margarethe A. (Kinzer) Leas, their children being: Algernon Sidney, Mar- garet Ann (married John Lewis, of Scotts- ville, Virginia), Amanda Cornelia (married Frederick Lafayette Fultz, of Staunton), Marshall Kent, Alexander Hamilton, Mary Louisa (married Harvey Lathrop, of Savan- nah, Georgia), Augusta Virginia (married John W. Alby, of W^ashington), Hugh Holmes and John Hampden.

Alexander Hamilton Fultz, son of Judge David and Margaret Ann (Leas) Fultz, was born at Warm Springs, Virginia, January I ^, 1837, died at Paoli, Pennsylvania, De- cember 3, 1908. At two years of age, his parents removed to Staunton. Captain Fultz graduated from the law department of Washington and Lee College, and asso- ciated himself with his father in the practice of law in Staunton. As a young man he warmly espoused the Southern cause ; en- listed in the "Staunton Artillery" at the very beginning of the war between the states, and the day the state of Virginia seceded, April 17, 1 861, the battery was ordered to Har- per's Ferry. At the reorganization of the company in the spring of 1862, Mr. Fultz was elected second lieutenant, and in De- cember, 1862, was made first lieutenant, which position he held until the company was paroled at Appomattox Court House. During a large part of this time the captain of the battery was absent on sick leave, and Lieutenant Fultz was in full charge of the battery. This battery was attached at various times to Bee's brigade. Whiting's bricrade. Hood's brigade, Lawton's brigade. Colonel H. P. Jones' battalion, Cutshaw's battalion, McClain's division, Pendleton's corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was a brave, gallant officer, and during battle was once slightly wounded, having his horse shot from under him. and the heel of his shoe torn away. He served through-