Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV, Part 24

Author: Steiner, Bernard Christian, 1867-1926. 1n; Meekins, Lynn Roby, 1862-; Carroll, David Henry, 1840-; Boggs, Thomas G
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Baltimore, Washington [etc.] B.F. Johnson, Inc.
Number of Pages: 744


USA > Maryland > Men of mark in Maryland Johnson's makers of America series biographies of leading men of the state, Volume IV > Part 24


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24


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Mr. Scott was a healthy boy, and early developed a taste for the law. Even in his youth, his preferred lines of reading were his- torical and legal. He was educated first in Washington County schools; and thence went to Mercersburg (Pennsylvania) .College. He was graduated by that institution in 1877 with the degree of


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NORMAN BRUCE SCOTT, JR.


'A.B. He then entered the law department of the University of Maryland and was graduated in 1881 with the degree of B.L. In the year of his graduation, he began practice in Hagerstown, and has followed his profession assiduously and successfully up to the present. From the very beginning of his career, Mr. Scott has been an active Republican. 1894 found him a member of the house of delegates of the general assembly. From that, his party friends in 1895 sent him to the State senate, where he served on the committee on judicial proceedings and 1898 found him as chairman of that committee, his term having been for four years. In 1898, after concluding his term in the senate, he was appointed by President McKinley naval officer of the port of Baltimore and served out his term in that capacity, returning at the conclusion of his public service to his law practice at Hagerstown.


. He is a member of the State and county bar associations; and his religious preference inclines to the Presbyterian Church. He is a director in, and counsel for the Mechanics Loan and Savings Institute. He has a large general practice, and is recognized as one of the ablest men at the bar of Western Maryland. Mr. Scott has never married.


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JOHN GOTTLIEB MORRIS


T HE Reverend Doctor John G. Morris, who during his life was one of the most eminent ministers of the Lutheran Church in America, was born in York, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1803, and died in Lutherville, Maryland, October 10, 1895.


He was for nearly seventy years a minister of the Lutheran Church, and for more than sixty years of that period was in active work. His parents were John and Barbara (Myers) Morris. His father was a physician and surgeon, a native of the Duchy of Bruns- wick, Germany, who came from that country to America in 1776 and enlisted in the American army, was assigned to duty in Armand's Legion and served to the end of the war; then settled in York, Pennsylvania, where the remainder of his life was spent. Dr. Morris was a man of independent spirit, genial and kindly heart, much interested in the young, approachable by all classes, a master of books, a lover of men, and possessed of wide information on many subjects. The son had therefore the advantages which accrue from the best of home training. He was educated in the York County Academy; Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Princeton University, and the Gettysburg Theological Seminary. He earned the degree of A.B. from Dickinson College in 1823. After private study in theology at Newmarket, Virginia, and Nazareth, Pennsyl- vania, he entered Princeton Seminary and graduated in theology in 1826. In later years after he had become distinguished, the degrees · of D.D. and LL.D. were conferred upon him by Pennsylvania Col- lege of Gettysburg.


On February 4, 1827, Doctor Morris became pastor of the First English Lutheran Church of Baltimore. He continued in this work thirty-three years, until 1860, when he became librarian of the Peabody Institute and served in that capacity for three years. From that time on, his pastoral work was irregular. In 1866, and again in 1876 to 1877 he served as pastor of the Third Lutheran Church. In the meantime, in 1874 to 1875, he had served as pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church, and from 1879 to 1885 he was pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran


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Church of Lutherville, Maryland, this being his last regular work, as in 1885 he had then reached the ripe age of eighty-two years.


Doctor Morris was a man of enormous industry. In addition to his pastoral and public work, he was a voluminous author; and while space will not permit even a résumé of his work in this direction, his Life Reminiscences of an Old Lutheran Minister show the following of his more important contributions to the literature of the country: 1832, Catechumen's and Communicants' Guide; 1832, Exercises on Luther's Catechism; 1834, Henry and Antonio; or, To Rome and Back Again (translation); 1839, Von Leonhard's Lectures of Geology (translation); 1842, Exposition of the Gospels, two vols; 1844, Year .Book of the Reformation, five articles in Luther's Catechism, illus- trated; 1853, Life of John Arndt; 1856, The Blind Girl of Wittenberg, Catherine Von Bora; 1859, Quaint Sayings and Doings of Luther, Register of the First Lutheran Church in Baltimore, from 1827 to 1859; 1861, Synopsis of the Described Lepidoptera of the United States, cata- logue of books for the Peabody Institute; 1873, A day in Capernaum; 1876, Bibliotheca Lutherana; 1878, Fifty Years in the Lutheran Min- istry; 1880, Diet of Augsburg; 1881, Journeys of Luther; 1882, Luther "at Wartburg; 1883, Koestlin's Life of Luther (translated); 1886, ' The Stork Family (biography).


His pastoral work and his publications show comparatively as * much work as any able bodied man could do; but on top of this, he held membership in the following societies: Academy of Sciences, . Philadelphia; Academy of Sciences, Boston; Society of Natural History, Nurnberg, Germany, with diploma; New York Lyceum; "Towa Historical Society; Society of Northern Antiquarians, Stockholm, with diploma; Royal Historical Society, London, with diploma; . American Association for the Advancement of Science; National Society of Sciences, Washington, D. C .; American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; Brooklyn Entomological Society, all of which are of a character to contribute to the public welfare; and during his life he filled actively the following positions: president of the Baltimore Lyceum; president of the Linnaean Society of Pennsyl- vania College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; president of the Young Men's Bible Society of Baltimore, Maryland; president of the Mary- land State Bible Society; president of the Maryland Academy of Sciences; president of the Maryland Historical Society; president of the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland; president


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of the Historical Society of the Lutheran Church; president of the Academy of Church History of the Lutheran Church in America; vice president for Maryland of the Society of the Sons of the Amer- ican Revolution; president of the Synod of Maryland of the Lutheran Church, secretary of the same; president of the General Synod of the Lutheran Church in the United States; director of the Theolog- ical Seminary of the Lutheran Church, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; trustee for over sixty years of Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; lecturer of Pulpit Elocution, and on The Relation of Science to Religion, at the Theological Seminary of the Lutheran Church at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; lecturer on zoology at Pennsyl- vania College, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Special attention may be called to the fact that he served for over sixty years as a trustee of one college; that he gave a large measure of time to official service in these various societies, and that he found time to be a regular lecturer on religious and scientific questions. Looking over these things, we begin to get some idea of the immense activity of the man. He was a lifetime student who was able to give out so much, because he took in so much.


Some idea of the varied character of his learning may be gathered from a paragraph taken from one page of his Reminiscences, which we here quote in full: "I was always fond of spouting scraps of poetry, many of which I committed to memory, as well as some larger extracts from Shakespeare, which I can recite at the present time, although I have forgotten many other passages which I com- mitted since those juvenile days. My juvenile reading was of course desultory. We had no large daily papers or illustrated weeklies or monthlies. Of course I went through Sanford and Merton, Robinson Crusoe, Thaddeus of Warsaw, and other popular books of that char- acter. I read novels of the older school, for the modern school had not yet opened. Even about my fifteenth year I ventured on '. Milton, but I was not yet grown up to it, but Goldsmith, Boswell. Cowper and other English authors of a like and unlike character were greedily read. I found Johnson's prose too heavy for me. excepting his Rasselas, which I gloated over. A good portion of Swift was gone through; some of Addison, Sterne and other old English writers, and some of later years, as Pollock, Montgomery, Kirkwhite, Campbell and others. I tried Hume, but could not master him, and Gibbon was too heavy. I had learned German well enough


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to relish Kotzebue's plays and others of that school. I liked Gellert, but I could never get through Klopstock's Messiah. As I grew up, and during my student years, I read some of Scott, Cooper, Irving, Dickens, Thackeray, Macaulay, Disraeli, and many other novelists, . while Cook's Voyages, Plutarch's Lives, Mungo Park's Travels, Anarcharsis and a number of other travels and voyages were read, either before I went to college or during my college years. Gold- smith's Animated Nature, a book which naturalists now laugh at, was the only book on that subject to which I had access in those remote times, and it was perhaps the reading of this which imparted to me a taste for studies of a kindred character, which I have pursued with some interest in later years."


The above paragraph written with his own hand gives a much better idea of the bent of his mind than could be done by any other individual in pages of explanation or description.


Dr. Morris was a great lover of nature and spent much of his time in the open air in pursuit of his studies of insect life. To this · fact he attributed his long life and freedom from many of the ills to which the flesh is heir. He was partial to fishing, and also to athletics, being notably fond of base ball-though of course not as a participant, merely as an observer. His studies in entomology · had purpose in them, and he accumulated a very large collection of butterflies.


In addition to the societies above mentioned, he served as presi- dent of the German Society of Maryland, and was for many years · a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.


A man like Dr. Morris, of patriotic antecedents-himself a lover of his kind and keenly interested in everything that went on around . him-naturally paid close attention to public affairs; but his other .work was so insistent and so filled his time, that he never took any active part in the political life of the State or nation, except to cast his vote as a citizen, usually adhering to the Republican party after that party was organized.


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The year after his death in 1896, the Lutheran Publication Society of, Philadelphia published his life, which makes a book of remarkable interest in view of the fact that he lived to such a great age and spent nearly seventy years in active work-a record rarely surpassed in our history. It is perhaps true that his active record


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as a minister has not been surpassed in our country; for certain it is that few men have ever been able to do active ministerial work up to the age of eighty-two.


On November 1, 1827, Dr. Morris married Eliza Hay, daughter of Jacob and Mary (Rudisill) Hay. Of this marriage, nine children were born, two of whom are now living: Miss Mary Hay Morris of Lutherville, Maryland, and Mrs. Georgianna (Morris) Leisenring.


Measured by any standard, Dr. Morris was a great man-great in learning; great in faith; great in industry; great in the results of his work. Early in life he put behind him mere earthly advancement and ambition, and devoted his life to the good of his fellow man. No man can measure, or even estimate, the good which has resulted to the world from the seventy years' labors of such a man.


JAMES SEWELL THOMAS


T HE Honorable James S. Thomas, city register of Baltimore, has a record of thirty-eight years of service in the govern- mental department of that city. This in itself is a rather unique distinction, outside of anything else.


The Thomas family in Maryland and in Baltimore has furnished many useful men and a number of distinguished names. The orig- inal emigrants were from Wales and settled in Kent County on the Eastern Shore. This was far back in the colonial period of the State. The paternal grandfather of Mr. Thomas served in the War of 1812, belonging to what is termed ir. Baltimore "The Old Defenders," and held the rank of corporal in the Fifty-Eighth Regiment during that war.


Mr. Thomas was born in Baltimore on May 23, 1849; son of James Pentz and Ann Elizabeth Thomas. His father was a banker and broker in.business circles, a man of sterling integrity in all business affairs; a Christian gentleman in everything; and in his home a pat- tern of kindness and courtesy. Among the notable members of Mr. Thomas' family may be mentioned Sterling Thomas and Rev. Thomas McGee, both of whom are familiar names in the annals of Maryland. The records of old Kent County give many pages to the Thomases, and enumerate not less than twenty-five men of the name, many of whom have rendered distinguished service, and one Philip Francis Thomas was governor of Maryland in the last century. At the present moment in the city of Baltimore, in addition to James Sewell Thomas in the public service, the business circles of the city recognize in Douglas H. Thomas one of its strongest men.


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Mr. Thomas as a boy was robust, healthy, fond of sports. Coupled with this, he had a pronounced taste for mathematics. His mother, a woman of strong domestic tastes and imbued with correct ideas as to her duties to her children, made a strong impress upon his youthful life which has abided with him and been perhaps the most potent force in his conduct through life. Mr. Thomas was educated in the public schools of Baltimore, followed by a course


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in Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, where he remained for two years, completing his educational training in the sophomore class of that university in 1867. He entered business life as a bookkeeper for his father in 1868. On October 2, 1872, he accepted a position in the city register department, and from that day to the present has been identified with the city government- thirty-eight years of continuous service. He was promoted to deputy register on May 6, 1884, and on May 28, 1907, was unanimously elected city register by the city council for a four-year term. He has been connected with every administration which has governed the city now for nearly forty years, and no greater testimonial could be given to his fidelity than his unanimous election by the city council, irrespective of partisan considerations, to fill his present responsible office. Some idea of why he holds this unique position in the city


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. may be gathered from his line of reading. He says that in addition to standard works of literature, he has found the most helpful reading in the city code and the new charter. A public official who finds his most interesting reading in the dry pages of the city code or a new charter is evidently a man who can be safely trusted with admin- istration. He is a modest man-he acknowledges that he has never at any time in his life "thought he knew it all;" and he has therefore been very observant, believing that every man with whom he came in contact might possibly be his master in some one thing, and from that man he could learn that one thing.


From 1868 to 1872, he served as a member of the famous Fifth Regiment. This seems to be part of the education of every young man in Baltimore who afterwards arrives at any distinction. His religious affiliation is with the Methodist Church, and in fraternal circles he holds membership in the Royal Arcanum, National Union, and the Order of Eagles. In a social way, he is a member of the Demo- cratic Club and gives his political allegiance to the Democratic party -- notwithstanding which he is able to command the support of men of the opposite party.


His chief recreation is in base ball; and though he may sometimes be a minority in politics, he is certainly in the overwhelming majority of the American people when he acknowledges his partiality to base ball.


Mr. Tl omas lays down a working code for a young man starting out in life which he puts in three lines, and which is an epitome of


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sound sense and so thoroughly correlated, that it is here given in . his own words: "Be truthful, honest and economical. Work hard, : and be loyal to your employers. Think for yourself when you become of age."


On December 2, 1873, he was married to Miss Mary H. Sauner. Of this marriage, three children, two daughters and a son, have been born, of whom one a daughter, is living, who is married to Harry F. Regester, son of Robert Regester. They have one son Robert Thomas Regester, born June 15, 1903.


JAMES EDWARD ELLEGOOD


AMES E. ELLEGOOD of Salisbury, who for many years past has ranked among the leading lawyers of his section, was born near Salisbury on the first day of January, 1842. His parents were Robert Houston and Maria (Parker) Ellegood. His father was by occupation a farmer-a man of unusual force of character, possessed of a very strong will, much firmness of purpose, and a vigorous intellect. He served as a judge of the orphans' court in his county and as United States collector of internal revenue.


On both sides of the house, Mr. Ellegood is of English descent. His immediate family has been settled on the Eastern Shore of Mary- land since the early colonial period. The family name of Ellegood is very ancient, coming down from the Anglo-Saxon period in England. The genealogists tell us that it was derived from the Anglo-Saxon Aethelgeard, which means a "noble guardian." The Danish form of the name is Ellegaard. It appears in the Domesday Book prepared by the early Norman kings under the form of Elgert, and the common form of the name in England is Elgood. In our own country, Mr. Ellegood's ancestors were chiefly engaged in agriculture; and, as he says, while not specially eminent, have always been substantial citizens. No man could have a better ancestry than this. As a boy, he had the usual tastes of a healthy boy, except that he developed a desire for a seafaring life. He did such work on the farm as falls to the average boy, having no regular tasks; and though not indolent. he was never.attracted by farm life. The most lasting impression of his boyhood was made by his mother, who died when he was young; but prior to her death, when a very small boy he recalls her advice on temperance as the best temperance lecture he ever heard, and attributes to her influence a life of total abstinence from intoxicants. He went to the local schools; and then having obtained an appoint- ment to Washington College, a State institution, he entered that school and was graduated in 1863, with the degree of bachelor of arts. He taught school for a short time at Salisbury; received an appointment in the treasury department at Washington, where he spent a year ;


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and while there was appointed purser on a steamship running between Baltimore and Liverpool. This enabled him to gratify his seafaring tastes-but down at the bottom there was a strong desire to be useful in a rather larger way than was afforded by the life of a steamship officer, and so finally he attended law lectures in Columbia Univer- sity at Washington, and was admitted to practice in 1869. - It is a noticeable fact in connection with lawyers who spend some years in other pursuits before entering the practice of the profession, that they are uniformly successful lawyers. The experience gained in other occupations seems to much more than offset their later arrival at the bar.


A lifetime Democrat in his political beliefs, in 1874, after he had been five years at the bar, he was elected by his party State's attorney for his county. In 1891, he was sent to the general assembly, where he served a term, and during his membership was a member of the ways and means committee, and a strong supporter of what was known as Hay's assessment bill. In 1902, he was candidate for con- gress, but not successful.


He has always been extremely active, both in church and in political life; and in 1904, he was sent as a delegate to the Quadren- nial General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which met that year in Los Angeles.


Mr. Ellegood has established not only the reputation of a strong lawyer, but that of a good business man and financier, and this has brought him into connection with a number of local enterprises, such as the Farmers and Merchants Bank, of which he is a director, and other local industrial and financial ventures.


- Mr. Ellegood was married on December 11, 1872, to Miss Rosa B. Wood, daughter of William T. Wood. Of this marriage, there are four daughters. The eldest, Julia, is the wife of Marion A. Humphreys; they have three children, James Ellegood, William J. and Julia Humphreys. The next child, Maria Louise, is unmarried. The third, Grace, is the wife of Henry B. Freeney; they have two children, Rosalie and James Ellegood Freeney. The next daughter, Bessie, is the wife of Harry Mayer, of Dover, Delaware. They have two children, Eliza and Maria Louise Mayer.


Mr. Ellegood believes it to be the duty of every man to be active both in church and in politics; and furthermore that it is his bounden duty to have the same conscience and sound ideals in both places.


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One thing crops out in Mr. Ellegood's experience that deserves special mention. In recalling the influences which have shaped his life, he says that his early school text-books were powerful, and he especially remembers the mental and moral stimulus gained from McGuffey's Third Reader. This is worthy of more than passing notice. Elderly men who read this brief sketch will recall the series of readers known as McGuffey's Readers. In all the history of American education, and with all modern so-called "improvements" and fads in an edu- cational way, there has never been anything to compare in quality with these small readers prepared by a plain, unassuming old Pres- byterian preacher, who was for thirty or forty years professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. Dr. McGuffey put into those books his whole heart. Simple as they appear to be, they have given stimulus in the past to multiplied thousands of strong men, and those men who have had the privilege of studying them in boyhood regret the fact that they have been in a large measure super- seded by works so much inferior.


THOMAS HOLLINGSWORTH MORRIS


T HOMAS HOLLINGSWORTH MORRIS was born in Balti- more on December 16, 1817, and died on February 16, 1872. His father, John Boucher Morris, was a prominent financier of his day, and president of the Mechanics' Bank. His mother was Anna Maria Hollingsworth, a daughter of Thomas and Annie (Adams) Hollingsworth. On the maternal side Mr. Morris's ances- try recalls a tragic episode in English history. Bishop Burnett, in his "History of his Times," tells in volume I, pages 480, 497 and 651, a story of Henry Cornish, a merchant, citizen and alderman of London, who was elected one of the high sheriffs of that city and the county of Middlesex in 1680. He was described by a contemporary as "a plain, warm, honest man, who lived very nobly." On account of activity on his part in attempting to unravel the so-called "Popish plot," and alleged complicity with Monmouth in his efforts to usurp the royal authority, he was attainted of treason, and at one of the bloody assizes conducted by the infamous Judge Jeffries, was arrested, tried, condemned and executed within a week's time. This legal murder took place on October 23, 1685. The falsity of the evidence apon which he was convicted appeared so clearly soon after his death, that the attainder, which at that time involved forfeiture of estate, was removed by act of Parliament, and his estate restored to his family, while the witnesses who had testified against him were lodged in remote prisons for their lives. Another writer of that period, the Reverend Edward Calamy, D.D., in his historical account of his own life and time (volume I. page 61) says that his uncle, the Reverend Benjamin Calamy, who had been Chaplain to the king and numbered Alderman Cornish among his parishioners of the St. Lawrence Church, .was particularly affected by the crucl treatment of that gentleman, on whose behalf he appeared in court at the time of the trial. He visited him in prison, and was earnestly pressed to go along with him to the place of execution. This he was not able to do, but he freely said that he could as well die with his friend as bear the sight. of his death under such circumstances.


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Catherine, daughter of Alderman Cornish, married Valentine - Hollingsworth, whose great-great-granddaughter, Anna Maria Hol- lingsworth, married John B. Morris, and was the mother of the sub- ject of this sketch. The coat-of-arms of the Cornish family of London to which Alderman Cornish belonged, is described by Burke as "Az. on a chev. gu. three lozenges of the field, each charged with a cross crosslet sa."


The Hollingsworth family, sometimes spelled Hollingworth, is one of the most ancient in England. It can be traced back by authenic records to the year 1022. Its ancient seat was at Hollingworth, County Chester. It is said that the family name was originally spelled Hollynworthe, and is derived from the holly tree, called in Cheshire hollyn tree, with which the estate abounded. The coat- of-arms is "Az. on a bend ar. three holly leaves vert. The crest is a stag lodged ppr. The motto is Disce ferenda pati."


The Morris family, much more numerous than the Hollings- worths or Cornishes, is found well scattered over Great Britain, being numerous in every part of that kingdom, and especially so in England.


Valentine Hollingsworth, who married the daughter of Henry Cornish, migrated to America and settled in Delaware. He repre- sented, as did also his son, Newcastle County in the general assembly. His grandson moved to Maryland and became a large land owner in Cecil County, where he was a member of the county court. Among other ancestors of Mr. Morris may be mentioned John Winder. born in 1625, and Wm. Winder, born in 1715, each of whom was a member of the county court for Somerset County, Maryland, and justice of the quorum.


The mother of Thomas H. Morris was a second wife. Ann Jenifer, daughter of Dr. Daniel Jenifer, born in 1788, was the first wife of John B. Morris, of Snow Hill, Somerset County, Maryland. · She died in 1814 after a brief married life.


The intimacy between the Jenifers and Morrises is shown by the fact that Colonel Daniel Jenifer, son of Dr. Daniel Jenifer and brother-in-law of John B. Morris, who became minister to Austria under Harrison and Tyler, took with him Thos. H. Morris as attaché of the legation.


Mr. Morris had best of educational advantages. After prelim- inary training, he entered the University of Virginia in the academic


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: schools, and then graduated from the law department of Harvard University.


He did not, however, actively follow the profession of law, but was known during his life as a man of letters, having been the author of several poems and plays which were privately published, and which were chiefly in the nature of skits on political subjects.


After his return from Europe, where he had been attaché of the American legation at Vienna, he was married, on January 1, 1846, to Miss Mary Johnson, daughter of Hon. Reverdy and Mary (Bowie) Johnson.


His father-in-law, Reverdy Johnson, was one of the most dis- tinguished men Maryland has ever produced. He served with rare 1 ability in the United States senate, as minister to England, as attorney ! general of the United States and during a long life was one of the best known public men of our country.


Of Mr. Morris's marriage seven children were born, of whom three are now living: Mary, who is the widow of Richard Irvin, of New York; Lydia Hollingsworth, who is the wife of Hollins McKim, of Baltimore, and Camilla Ridgely, who is the wife of Clayton C. Hall, of Baltimore.


On the outbreak of the Civil War, Mr. Morris adhered to the . Union, and during that struggle served as a member of the Home Guard, of Baltimore. He was a member of the Maryland Club, but on account of the political feeling of that day, he resigned and . joined the Union Club, which later became the Atheneum. Here- mained a steadfast Union man during the war, and after that affiliated in a political way with the Republican party. His church relations were with the Protestant Episcopal Church, and for many years he * * was a member of the congregation known as "Old St. Paul's." Mr. Morris's recreations during his life were shooting and riding, in the way of outdoor sports, and the study of literature and languages indoors. He never sought notoriety or publicity. He was content during life to do his duty faithfully from day to day as he saw it, and to exercise such influence as he might by setting a good example.


No better summary of his character and his life can be given than that which appeared in one of the Baltimore newspapers on the d: y after his death, and which is here given as it appeared:


"It is with deep and unaffected pain that we are compelled to record the death of Mr. Thomas Hollingsworth Morris, which took


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place suddenly, yesterday afternoon (February 16), at his residence, on Washington Place, in this city.


"There was no private gentleman, in our whole community, who commanded, more entirely than Mr. Morris, the respect and · regard of those who knew him. His character and tone of thought and life were of the utmost purity and elevation, and he had adorned an intellect of remarkable vigor and independence with the graces and accomplishments of a refined and various culture. His social gifts were many and delightful, and combined with his untiring and cordial hospitality and eminently social spirit to make him, perhaps more than any other single individual, the center of the circle in which he moved. In all the relations of life he was honorable and devoted-a modest, brave and noble gentleman."


Mr. Morris, through all of his ancestral lines, came of good stock. He lived up to the very highest standard which had been set by the strong men and good women who were his forbears; and . it was only after he was removed suddenly from the activities of life, that his friends and neighbors fully appreciated the influence which he had exerted and the usefulness of his life.


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