USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Peterborough > History of the town of Peterborough, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire > Part 48
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In 1856, after a rest of two years on his farm, he returned to Baltimore and opened a girls' school, which he continued to teach till July, 1866. When his brother Nathaniel gave up his school, in 1867, he took charge of it ; and he remained in Baltimore till February, 1869, when infirm health compelled him to seek relief from all serious labor. A paralytic affection had made itself felt in his limbs as early as 1856. By careful attention and active remedies, he had succeeded in retarding the prog- ress of the disease ; but he never got entirely rid of it. He returned to his farm in Peterborough in 1869, where for a time he seemed to improve, and where he d. Aug. 5, 1870, æ. 59 yrs., II mos.
Mr. Morison was an excellent scholar, especially in mathematics; and he had a great fondness for the natural sciences, - which he taught unusually well. Few teachers ever surpassed him in easy, lucid, and familiar explanations of natural phenomena.
Like all good teachers, he had an analytical mind ; and the boy must have been dull indeed whom he could not make understand the subjects ordinarily taught in school. He was one of nature's own teachers, peculiarly fitted to impart knowledge to the young, and fond of doing so ; but the government of a school was always an irksome task to him, and this rendered him less fond of his profession than he otherwise would have been. In 1851, he published a book for children, called Pebbles from the Sea Shore. : S.
Elizabeth Whitridge, b. Baltimore, Dec. 8, 1842; r. Portsmouth.
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ELAN De A H Ritchie.
NA Morison
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NATHANIEL HOLMES MORISON.
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Mary Ann, b. Oct. 24, 1844 ; r. Portsmouth. Caroline Augusta, b. Sept. 20, 1847 ; r. Portsmouth. Samuel Lord, b. Oct. 28, 1851 ; graduate Harvard Uni- versity, 1873 ; m., Nov. 18, 1875, Nancy O. Williams ; r. Boston.
NATHANIEL HOLMES MORISON. When he was three years old his father suddenly died of yellow fever, at Natchez, Miss., where he had a contract for introducing a supply of water into that city. At the time of his father's death, the works had not been begun, but heavy expenses had been incurred in taking men and materials to that distant place, and the family property was swal- lowed up by the claims of creditors ; his mother's dowry in the farm, which had descended from his great-great- grandfather, John Morison, being nearly all that was left for the support and education of seven children - five sons and two daughters, -the oldest but fourteen years of age, and the two youngest twins of a single year. His mother was a woman of uncommon intelli- gence and of great force of character, but her energy was taxed to the utmost to supply the wants of her large family, and provide them with the education which it was her fixed purpose to give them. Her ambition did not rise to the idea of securing a college education for her sons, but she sought to give them the best instruc- tion which the country schools afforded, and to provide them all with trades. Few women have begun their widowhood under more discouraging circumstances, and fewer still have met the exigencies of that position with a more determined purpose to train up their children in the way they wished them to go. Her ambition and her courage fired theirs. The children caught the inspira- tion of the mother, but their ideas of what their educa- tion should be were soon far beyond hers.
Nathaniel spent his childhood, till he was eight years old, with his mother in the South Village, attending the school, and performing such small services at home as lay within the range of his capacity and his years. In the spring of 1825, when he was nine years old, he went to live with his father's uncle, Dea. Nathaniel Holmes, after whom he had been named. He remained with his uncle, where he was very happy, "doing chores," and working on the farm in such ways as a boy of his age could work, till December, 1828. In August, 1831, after more than two years of employment elsewhere- one summer on a farm with Peter Davis, in Dublin, and nearly two years in the woollen mill of Henry F. Cogs- well, - he entered the machine-shop of Moore & Colby,
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where he spent two years and a half in learning the trade of a machinist.
During these nine years, he attended regularly the district school at the South Village in winter; and he spent most of his leisure hours, during the rest of the year, in reading or study, without instruction and with- out guidance. Besides reading numerous histories, he studied natural philosophy, astronomy, arithmetic, and algebra, entirely by himself. He was at work for an entire year on a single problem in Colburn's Algebra which arrested his progress. At that time there was not a person in town who could render him the assistance he required ; and had there been such a person, it is not at all probable that he would have accepted his aid. The trait which this anecdote illustrates is probably the most prominent one in his character ; and, though it may at times have given some trouble to his friends, in the more repulsive form which many call obstinacy, it has done him good service on many important occasions in life, in that other form, so essential to all successful living, - tenacity of purpose. One day, in Baltimore, several years after this, when he was dragging through the weary days of spring and early summer with a school of two pupils, and between the classes reading Dante's Inferno, in Italian, by way of recreation, Dr. Burnap, with whom he was studying divinity, asked him if he proposed to keep on with his school, under so much discouragement. Receiving in reply an unhesitating "Yes," the doctor jumped from his chair, and, swinging his hand above his head, shouted with full lungs, “ Hur- rah for New Hampshire!" Dr. Burnap was himself a New Hampshire man, from Merrimack, and his hearty enthusiasm on this occasion certainly had no tendency to weaken the resolution of his pupil.
On the first of. January, 1834, he entered Phillips (Exeter) Academy, where he remained till August, 1836, when he was admitted into the Sophomore Class of Har- vard College, having prepared himself for this advanced standing in two years and seven months.
At that time eight young men, all from the southern side of the town, and interconnected by blood relation- ship, were seeking a collegiate education at school or college. These were Nathaniel Holmes, Horace and Nathaniel H. Morison, Barnard B. Whittemore, James and George Walker, James Smith, and Joseph Addison White. John H. Morison, whose example had probably more or less influenced them all in their desire to secure a liberal education, had a little before completed his collegiate course, and James Morison followed immedi-
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ately after. All these young men, with a single ex- ception, graduated, - some of them with distinguished honors, all with a reputation for scholarship which was creditable to their talents and their industry. James Walker was cut off by consumption before he had finished his college course. He was a young man of fair abilities and good scholarship. He had a large head and a bright eye, but his tall, thin figure gave early indications of weakness and disease. Addison White was an earnest, persevering student, to whom learning did not come as an easy task ; but he was faithful and true to every duty, and graduated at Harvard, in 1840, with an honorable rank in his class. From college he went to Middletown, Pa., to take charge of a school. There he was married, and there he died, in 1843, leav- ing behind him nothing to indicate to his friends the character of the work he was doing.
These young men furnished to each other, at the most susceptible period of life, when the heart most craves sympathy, a delightful companionship. In their close intimacy at school, in their journeyings to and from Exeter, often on foot, in parties of from two to four, and in their vacations at home, even after they had separated for college, they experienced all those social and moral pleasures which came from a fellowship of young and ardent minds, having a common origin, common sentiments, common pursuits, and a common purpose in life. Like all persons from mountainous districts, they felt a strong, patriotic attachment to their old home among the hills. In their frequent foot- journeys to Exeter, they never failed to stop on the top of the East Mountain to take a farewell view of the Monadnock, before it passed out of their sight; and in returning, as they ascended the last mountain-slope from the east, foot-sore and weary as they always were from their long journey of sixty miles, they were never too weary for a race to the top, to see who should first catch a glimpse of the grand old mountain, which rose before them firm, majestic, and impassable, like a faithful sentinel guarding the homes of their childhood.
Nathaniel Morison was placed in relations of peculiar intimacy with most of these young men. His brother Horace was his chum at Exeter, and for a year in college ; James Walker was his chum at Exeter; Ber- nard Whittemore was his classmate both at Exeter and in college ; and James Smith was his chum for two years at Exeter, and they had been companions and intimate friends from their earliest childhood up.
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" For they were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill ; Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eyelids of the morn, They drove afield; and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn ; Battening their flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star, that rose at evening bright,
Towards heaven's descent had sloped her westering wheel."
As a student, young Morison was obliged to practise the most rigid economy in all his expenses -in dress, in board, in books, and in travelling. He once walked on the frozen ground, in December, from Peterborough to Exeter, the entire journey costing but the two cents paid for crossing the Merrimack at Thornton's Ferry. He carried a lunch in his pocket, and spent the night at the Rev. Jacob Abbot's, in Windham. Like most country boys of the period, he sought to increase his scanty means by teaching school in winter. He began his career as a school-master during his Sophomore year, in the brick school-house on High Street, afterwards remod- elled and occupied as a dwelling by Samuel Holmes. During the next winter he taught the village school in Grafton, Mass. ; and in 1838-9 he had charge of the High School at Scituate Harbor. His life at school and college was a laborious one ; but it was extremely pleas- ant. He was on terms of easy and agreeable inter- course with all his schoolmates and classmates, joining most of their societies and social gatherings. He was a member of the Golden Branch at Exeter ; and in college he joined the Institute of 1770, the Harvard Union, the Hasty Pudding Club, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Very early in life he had shown a fondness for poetic composition, and he was chosen by his schoolmates to write the ode for the Exhibition at Exeter in 1835, and a song for the celebration of the Fourth of July by the students in 1836. At the annual exhibition of the academy in 1835, he was appointed to deliver an original English poem, and in 1836 an original Latin poem. In college he was chosen by his classmates to write the song for the class supper at the end of their Sophomore year, and the ode for class-day at the end of their Senior year. He also delivered the poem before the Hasty Pudding Club, in 1838; and he gained one of the Bowdoin prizes for English composi- tion the same year. He graduated in 1839, the third scholar in his class, having one of the orations for his part at Commencement.
Immediately after graduating, he went to Baltimore, to become the principal teacher in a fashionable girls'
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school which had just been opened in that city ; and he remained in this position for nearly two years. In May, 1841, he opened a girls' school on his own account. In 1840, he, with his brother Horace, began the study of divinity with the Rev. Dr. G. W. Burnap, an accom- plished biblical scholar and critic, under whom he con- tinued until he had completed the full course of three years in theology. He was licensed to preach by the Cheshire Pastoral Association, which met at Keene, in the summer of 1843. On the 22d of December, 1842, he married Sidney Buchanan Brown, of Baltimore. She belonged to the same Scotch-Irish race from which he was descended, her ancestors having settled near Carlisle, Penn.
His school, which for an entire term consisted of two pupils, soon became so prosperous that he gradually gave up all idea of devoting himself to the ministry. He had preached only a few times and at irregular intervals. In a few years his school became the largest in the city, numbering at one time a hundred and forty pupils. For twenty years, including the war, when there was a great falling off in pupils, the average number of his scholars was a hundred and ten - the largest private girls' school ever kept in the city for so long a period. Nearly a thousand ladies from the most intelligent families of Baltimore have received their education from him ; and five of its private schools, among them its leading girls' school, are now (1875) taught by his pupils. His school had the reputation of being unusu- ally strict in its government, and rigorous in its require- ments of serious study from its pupils. It therefore attracted few of those who were not disposed to learn. He was fond of his profession, and devoted to it all his energy and all the best powers of his mind; and he was amply rewarded and cheered by constant manifesta- tions of the respect and affection of his pupils, among whom he has found some of the warmest friendships of his life.
In 1867, he was invited to take charge of the Peabody Institute, of Baltimore, which had been founded by George Peabody, of London, in 1857, and which has received from him an endowment of $1,240,000. His school was still in the full tide of success, and he long hesitated before he accepted this important but wholly unsolicited charge. He received his appointment as provost of the institute in April, and entered upon his new duties in September, 1867. He devoted himself at once to the library, which then consisted of about 15,000 volumes of miscellaneous books, among which
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NATHANIEL HOLMES MORISON.
were very few of the great works which such a library should contain. Under his administration more than $150,000 have been spent in the purchase of books. The library now contains over 60,000 volumes, and is everywhere, among scholars, regarded as one of the best reference libraries in the country.
Dr. Morison has for many years been a trustee of the First Independent Church of Baltimore. For twenty- seven years he was a member, and most of that time the superintendent, of its Sunday-school. He is one of the board of governors and visitors of St. John's College, at Annapolis, from which, in 1871, he received the honor- ary degree of LL.D. When a volume, beautifully printed and illustrated, was issued, in 1871, describing the representative men of Baltimore, he was selected as the " representative teacher" of the city, and a short sketch of his life, with a portrait, was placed in the book.
In 1857, he purchased in Peterborough the place now known as Bleakhouse, and fitted it up for a summer residence. The house was built by John White in 1792, and was the old homestead of the White family down to 1846, when Robert White died, and his farm was divided and sold. His affection for his old home drew him back to the place of his birth, and for nineteen years he and his family have spent at least three months of each summer amid the scenes so familiar and dear to his boy- hood. When, in 1872, he gave up all interest in the school which he had established in Baltimore, and over which he had presided for a quarter of a century, he sent all his philosophical apparatus, which cost origi- nally about $2,000, as a gift to the high school of his native town.
He has been too busy with the practical work of his profession to have had much leisure for other literary employments.
In 1843, he published Three Thousand Questions in Geography, which passed through three editions, and is still used by some of the best schools in Baltimore. He also published a small book on Punctuation and Solecisms, of which an enlarged edition was printed in 1867, under the title of A School Manual. In 1871, he wrote a pam- phlet on the management and objects of the Peabody Institute. Besides these, he has written nine annual reports to the trustees of the Peabody Institute, which have been printed for distribution among similar institu- tions elsewhere.
Frank, b. March 18, 1844 ; m., Oct. 10, 1865, Lucy Ann Fisk, of Boston, b. June 25, 1843 ; d. May 25, 1866,
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JAMES MORISON.
at Florence, Italy. He studied law, and is now prac- tising his profession in Boston.
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George Brown, b. Jan. 5, 1846 ; d. May 11, 1850. Ernest Nathaniel, b. Nov. 14, 1848 ; graduate Harvard University, 1870 ; m., Oct. 31, 1871, Priscilla Ridgely White, of Baltimore; b. Dec. 13, 1850; ch., (1) Nathaniel H., b. Sept. 24, 1872 ; (2) Charles R. W., b. Jan. 21, 1874 ; (3) Sidney B., b. Dec. 16, 1875. He is engaged in business in Baltimore.
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Robert Brown, b. March 13, 1851; M.D., University of Maryland, 1874. He entered Harvard College in 1869, but left in the middle of his Sophomore year, and went to Germany, where he remained three years. He spent a year each at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin, in the study of his profession. He is now. settled in Baltimore as a physician.
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William George, b. May 31, 1853 ; d. very suddenly at Exeter, where he was fitting for college, Oct. 30, 1869, æ. 16 yrs.
John Holmes, b. Jan. 21, 1856; now a member of Har- vard College.
Alice Sidney, b. Jan. 24, 1859.
George Burnap, b. May 9, 1861.
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SAMUEL ADAMS MORISON. He moved to San Fran- cisco in 1849, where he now resides. He m., Nov. 9, 1847, Ellen Smith, of Bodega, Cal., b. June 6, 1820.
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James Henry, b. Jan. 20, 1851. William C., b. Jan. 11, 1855. Wallace, b. Dec. 29, 1861.
JAMES MORISON, M.D. After the death of his father when hardly a year old, he remained with his mother till he was ten years of age; he then lived for nearly four years as a farmer's boy in the families of Samuel Fisk and Ivory Perry, of Dublin. He received for his ser- vices his board and clothing, and had the privilege of going to school two or three months in the winter. He. was employed for three years, from the spring of 1833; in the woollen factory of Henry F. Cogswell, in the . South Factory Village. In the autumn of 1836, he entered Phillips (Exeter) Academy. In the spring of 1839, illness compelled him to suspend his studies at the academy. He returned to Peterborough, and began the study of medicine in the office of Drs. Follansbee & Smith. He soon, however, regained his health, and returned to Exeter, where he remained until 1841, when he was admitted to the Sophomore class of Harvard
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University. He graduated in 1844, and left immedi- ately for Baltimore, where he resumed the study of medicine, and received his medical degree from the University of Maryland, in 1846. He received the appointment of resident physician of the Baltimore Infirmary, a position which he retained until he left for California, in the latter part of 1849. He went to Cali- fornia in a British steamship, by way of the Straits of Magellan, arriving at San Francisco early in the summer of 1850, where he remained in the practice of his pro- fession until the spring of 1854, when he returned to the Eastern States, and went to Europe in the following October. He remained abroad until the summer of 1856. He spent most of his time in Paris, where he attended medical lectures and the clinics of the hos- pitalś.
He m. Mary S. Sanford, of Boston, Jan. 29, 1857, the dau. of Philo and Martha (Druce) Sanford, b. March 8, 1821. He returned to San Francisco in the following spring. His w. d. Jan. 17, 1866, æ. 44 yrs., 10 mos., leaving two children. He returned to New England in 1867, and m. Ellen Wheeler, of Keene, June 16, 1868, dau. of Sumner and Catharine (Vose) Wheeler, b. June. 18, 1837.
In 1858 he assisted in the organization of the first medical school established on the Pacific coast, under the charter of the University of the Pacific. He was appointed professor of the theory and practice of medi- cine and pathology in this school, a position which he held for five years. He was for several years one of the trustees of the University of the Pacific, and in 1869 vice-president of the California Medical Society. He has been an active member of the following medical and scientific societies and associations : California Med- ical Society, California Academy of Natural Sciences, Franco-American Medical Society, Paris, Massachusetts Medical Society, Norfolk District Medical Society, Dor- chester Medical Club, and American Medical Associa- tion. In June, 1869, he removed to Quincy, Mass., where he now resides, in the practice of his profession.
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Sanford, b. Oct. 26, 1859, at San Francisco. Emily, b. Jan. 20, 1864, at San Francisco.
ROBERT MORISON, Jr. He m. Betsey Spring, dau. of Josiah C. Spring, Sept. 12, 1805. He d. April 25, 1861, æ. 77 yrs. Lived many years in Hancock, but returned and d. in town.
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Samuel S., b. Feb. 19, 1806 ; d. Oct. 21, 1825, æ. 19 yrs. Josiah S., b. Jan. 12, 1808 ; m. Phebe V. Knight. ¡ Robert H., b. March 19, 1810 ; m. Emily Johnson. Nathaniel, b. May 6, 1812 ; m. Mary Knight. Elizabeth A., b. Dec. 23, 1814; m. Goodyear Bassett. Mary Ann, b. April 20, 1817 ; m. George Wilcox, April 18, 1848.
David, b. July 31, 1819 ; m.
Sarah, b. Jan. 18, 1823 ; d. Oct. 29, 1825, æ. 2 yrs., 9 mos.
JOSIAH S. MORISON now resides in South Acworth, and with his son Robert is engaged in the grain and lumber business. He has held important offices in town, - Representative 1845, '48, selectman 1849, '50.
He has been for a large portion of his life engaged in building machinery, and when the Cotton Mill, No. 2, of the Union Manufacturing Company was built, from his long experience and knowledge of machinery, he was employed to make all the calculations necessary to adapt the power to the machinery to be propelled, and to arrange all matters required to secure a successful opera- tion of the same. Little or no change has ever been made in these arrangements. He m., Sept. 4, 1831, Phebe Knight, b. June 19, 1807.
Sarah T., b. Lowell, Aug. 5, 1832 ; m. John D. Holmes ; r. Alstead.
Lizzie M., b. March 23, 1836 ; m. Melville S. Buxton ; r. Alstead.
Ellen, b. June 29, 1840 ; m. Moses B. Wells ; r. Bellows Falls, Vt.
Sylva S., b. Dec. 8, 1842 ; d. Sept. 13, 1844, æ. I yr., 9 mos.
Robert S., b. Oct. 25, 1845 ; m. Sarah A. Washburn ; r. South Acworth.
Edgar K., b. May 6, 1848 ; graduate of Bridgewater Normal School. Now a teacher.
Phebe, b. March 2, 1852 ; d. April 13, 1852, æ. 41 dys.
ROBERT HOLMES MORISON. He lived many years in Lowell, when he returned to Peterborough and bought the James Gregg place, where he how lives. He m., June 27, 1855, Emily Johnson, b. Nov. 4, 1819.
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Elmer Leland, b. June 20, 1857.
Hermon R., b. Sept. 25, 1859. Stella Edwina, b. Nov. 25, 1863.
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NATHANIEL MORISON.
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NATHANIEL MORISON. He lived many years in Lowell, and then re. to Peterborough, but subsequently bought a farm in Greenfield, where he now r. He m. Mary Knight, b. Oct. 18, 1815.
Edgar D., b. Jan. 17, 1842 ; d. Aug. 16, 1843, æ. I yr., 7 mos.
Henry B., b. Nov. 18, 1845 ; m. Abby M. Weston ; one ch., Dora Mabel.
Willie Aldo, b. May 10, 1855 ; d. Oct. 9, 1856, æ. I yr., 5 mos.
Myro Almon, b. June 21, 1857.
JOHN MORRISON (Rev.) is of a race entirely distinct from the early settlers of this town who bore the same name. He was b. in Pathfoot, in Scotland, May 22, 1743. He was graduated at the University of Edin- burgh in 1765. He arrived in Boston the May follow- ing, and was ordained at Peterborough, Nov. 26, 1766. He was the first settled minister of the town. He was a man of more than ordinary talents, but soon proved to be intemperate and licentious. His conduct became so scandalous that a presbyterial meeting was held, and he was for a time suspended from his office. He relin- quished his connection with the society in March, 1772. In the meanwhile he visited South Carolina, but re- turned ; and, after the battle of Bunker Hill, he deserted to the British, and remained in their service till his death. He d. suddenly (as is supposed) at Charleston, S. C., while a commissary in the British service, May 26 or 27, 1782, æ. 49 yrs. He m. Sarah Ferguson, dau. John Ferguson, Jan. 8, 1767. He never returned to town after he deserted the cause of the colonists. His family were left in a destitute condition, and in 1776 he informed his wife that if some one would come to New York, to a place designated by him, he would send money to her. Her brother, Henry Ferguson, accord- ingly went, and is supposed to have been on this very service when the Association Test, or Declaration of Independence, was signed by the eighty-three in town, as his name is not found among them. He received a certain amount, some say a pound, of gold ; others, some three or four hundred dollars. In his absence he incurred the suspicion of having gone over to the Brit- ish, - but never a truer man or patriot ! Bad as Morri- son has been represented, and bad as his conduct appears, his wife never lost her faith in him. This transaction was greatly to his credit. She d. Nov. 28, 1824, æ. 84 yrs. Her last days were tenderly and care-
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