Prominent families of New York; being an account in biographical form of individuals and families distinguished as representatives of the social, professional and civic life of New York city, Part 69

Author: Weeks, Lyman Horace, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: New York, The Historical company
Number of Pages: 650

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412

AUGUSTUS NEWBOLD MORRIS

A MONG the great landowners of New Netherland, in the seventeenth century, were members of the Morris family. Originally of Welsh blood, the family was descended from the great chieftain Rhys, or Rice, Fitzgerald, brother to Rhys, Prince of Gevent-

land. In 1171, in company with Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, he took part in the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland, and for his valiant deeds was called Maur Rhys, that is, the great Rys. In the course of time, his descendants proudly held to this title, which eventually became transformed into Morris. The arms of the family are: Gules, a lion, rampant, reguardant or., quarterly with three torteauxes, argent; the crest is a castle in flames.

William Morris, of Tintern, Monmouthshire, England, was the father of the two sons who became identified with this country. The elder son, Colonel Lewis Morris, inherited an estate in England, but emigrated to the West Indies in 1662, and came to New York in 1674. His brother, Richard, who had been a Captain in Cromwell's army and later a merchant in Barbadoes, preceded him to this country and bought a large plantation north of the Bronx River, part of the property of Joseph Bronck, or Bronx, a Hollander who had settled there and acquired possession from the Indians. The property was in part confiscated by the Dutch when they temporarily repossessed the Colony in 1673, but Colonel Morris, coming from Barbadoes, regained possession of it for himself and for his young nephew, Lewis Morris, the only son of his brother Richard, who had in the meantime died. Colonel Morris was a member of Governor Dongan's council, 1683-86, and when he died, in 1691, his nephew, Lewis Morris, succeeded to the entire estate.

In 1697, Governor Fletcher confirmed to the younger Lewis Morris the grant made by Governor Andros to his uncle, and erected the lands into a lordship or manor under the name of Morrisania. This tract of land included some nineteen hundred acres. Lewis Morris was born in 1672, and was in many ways a remarkable man. He was the first native born Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, a Judge of East New Jersey in 1692, Governor of New Jersey, 1738-46, and was prominent in all the difficulties attending the administrations of the early Colonial Governors, Cornbury, Hamilton, Lovelace, Ingoldsby, Hunter, Cosby, Montgomerie and Burnet. He died in 1746 and was succeeded by Lewis Morris, second of the name, his son by his wife, Isabella Graham, daughter of Sir James Graham, Attorney-General of the Province of New York. The second Lewis Morris, 1698-1762, was several times a member of the Colonial Assembly, and was also Judge of the Court of Admiralty and of the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Among his children were several of the most famous men of the Revolutionary period, including, as they did, General Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Honorable Richard Morris, Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, and the Honorable Gouverneur Morris, Minister to France in 1792. Among his grandchildren were Colonel Lewis Morris, aide to General Nathaniel Greene, General Jacob Morris and Commodore R. V. Morris, of the United States Navy.

Mr. Augustus Newbold Morris is descended from General Lewis Morris. His grandfather, James Morris, was the fourth son of the General, while his grandmother was a member of the Van Cortlandt family, of Yonkers. His father, William H. Morris, who was born in 1810, was the tenth. child of the family. His first wife was Hannah Newbold, daughter of Thomas Newbold, of New York, and the subject of this sketch is the only surviving son of their family of five children. Mr. Morris was born June 3d, 1838, and was graduated from Columbia College in 1860. He has. traveled extensively in Europe and the East. His attention has been largely taken up with caring for his estates, but he has devoted much time to charitable undertakings, being on the board of management of many benevolent institutions. His former home in Pelham, now part of New York's park system, was one of the most beautiful country places in the vicinity of the city. He has a city residence in East Sixty-fourth Street, and belongs to the Metropolitan and Union clubs. He married Eleanor C. Jones, daughter of General James I. Jones. His son, Newbold Morris, married Helen S. Kingsland.

413

HENRY LEWIS MORRIS

C ONSPICUOUS above most families in the number of eminent sons that it has contributed to the public service of their country, has been the Morris family of Morrisania. The origin and the early American history of the family have been given on the preceding page of this volume. That branch of which Mr. Henry Lewis Morris is the prominent representative in the present generation, is derived from Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence. The second Lewis Morris, 1698-1762, was twice married, first to Catharine Staats, daughter of Dr. Samuel Staats, and again to Sarah Gouverneur, daughter of Nicholas Gouverneur. By both wives, he was the father of sons who became preeminently distinguished. His elder son, by his wife, Catherine Staats, was Lewis Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a Major-General in the Revolution. His second son, Staats Long Morris, adhered to the cause of the crown in the Revolution, and returning to England, married Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen, and widow of the Duke of Gordon, and became a General in the British Army. His third son, the Honorable Richard Morris, was Chief Justice of New York, 1779-90.

General Lewis Morris married Mary Walton, daughter of Jacob Walton and Maria Beekman, who died in 1794. Their sixth son was Commodore Richard Valentine Morris, who was a Captain in the navy in 1798, commanded the Mediterranean Squadron in 1802, and died in New York in 1815. Commodore Morris was the grandfather of Mr. Henry Lewis Morris. His first wife was Anne Walton, daughter of Jacob Walton and Mary Cruger, who was a daughter of Henry Cruger, Sr. By her he had three sons, Gerard W., Richard V., and Henry Morris. Henry Morris, the third son, married Mary N. Spencer, daughter of the Honorable John C. Spencer, Secretary of War and of the Treasury, under President John Tyler. Mr. Henry Lewis Morris, who was born August 8th, 1845, is the eldest son of Henry Morris and his wife, Mary N. Spencer. He married, in 1868, Anna R. Russell, daughter of Archibald Russell and Helen Rutherfurd Watts, and granddaughter of Dr. John Watts and Anna Rutherfurd. Through both her grandfather and her grandmother, who were cousins, Mrs. Morris is descended from the Rutherfurd and Watts families, who have been conspicuous in the annals of New York. Her grandfather was the son of Robert Watts and Mary Alexander, and a grandson of John Watts, member of the King's Council of New York, and also of Major-General William Alexander, Lord Stirling, of the American Army, by his wife, Sarah Livingston, daughter of Philip Livingston, second Lord of the Manor. The grandmother of Mrs. Morris was a daughter of John Rutherfurd, of New York.

Mr. and Mrs. Morris reside in Morrisania, upon a portion of the old Manor property which Mr. Morris inherited from his father and grandfather. They have a city residence in West Fifty- third Street, and a country home, Mount Airy Cottage, Ridgefield, Conn. They have had two children, Eleanor Rutherfurd and Lewis Spencer Morris. Mr. Morris was educated as a lawyer, and is engaged in the practice of his profession in New York. He is a member of the Bar Association, the Metropolitan, Lawyers', Church, City and Riding clubs, the St. Nicholas Society, and the American Geographical Society, and a patron of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Museum of Natural History.

By his second wife, Sarah Gouverneur, the most distinguished son of Colonel Lewis Morris was Gouverneur Morris, the eminent statesman and diplomat, 1752-1816. His wife was Ann Cary Randolph, of Virginia, daughter of Thomas Mann Randolph, and a member of the Randolph, Cary, Page, Wormley, Fleming and Isham families, of Virginia. The second Gouverneur Morris, who was born in 1813, took an active part in the development of the internal resources of the United States in the first half of the present century. He was twice married, first to his cousin, Martha Jefferson Cary, of Virginia, and second, to his cousin, Anna Morris. He left two sons, Gouverneur Morris and Randolph Morris. The former was a journalist and died in 1897, leaving a widow, who was Henrietta Baldwin, a daughter, Henrietta Fairfax Morris, and a son, Gouverneur Morris, who is a student in Yale University.

414

RICHARD MORTIMER

F OR three generations the Mortimer family has been conspicuously identified with all that is conservative and substantial in New York City. They came originally from good English stock, their ancestors being substantial residents of Yorkshire. William Mortimer, a man of prominence of Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, was the immediate ancestor of the American branch of the family. He was the possessor of independent means, and figured conspicuously in the local affairs of the community in which he lived.

Richard Mortimer, the son of William Mortimer, was born in Cleckheaton in 1791. He was brought up to follow a commercial career, and had some experience in business before he left England. His brother-in-law was William Yates, a manufacturer of woolen goods, who was then at the head of a firm that could trace back its history for more than one hundred years; and in 1816 Richard Mortimer, who was then twenty-five years of age, came to New York to represent his relative in the United States. He was eminently successful in his conduct of the interests with which he was entrusted, and at the same time took a high rank in the New York commercial community, while he also became the possessor of large personal means. In 1834, after eighteen years of successful business experience in New York, he was obliged to retire on account of ill health and paid a long visit to Europe. Returning to this country, he invested largely in New York real estate, 'and displayed a far-sighted appreciation of the future growth of the city.

Among his many important possessions were the Mortimer Building in Wall Street, as well as other properties in the principal up-town streets. For many years he resided in a house in Broadway near Twelfth Street. Mr. Mortimer was a director of the Standard Fire Insurance Company and of the Sixth Avenue Railroad, and was connected with many other corporations. In 1821, he married Harriette Thompson, of New Haven, Conn., a daughter of William Thompson, and a descendant from Anthony Thompson, who was one of the company that originally settled New Haven under Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport, in 1637.

William Yates Mortimer, the son of Richard Mortimer and his wife, Harriette, was born in New York City and educated principally in Europe. He married Elizabeth Thorpe, daughter of Aaron Thorpe, of Albany. Inheriting a large part of his father's fortune, his life was spent in caring for this property and in real estate investments of his own, by which he greatly increased his wealth. He was also deeply interested in the welfare of the community and was a liberal benefactor of its charitable institutions. He died in 1891, and by the terms of his will, left considerable sums of money to such objects. Two sons of William Yates Mortimer represent the family in this generation, Richard Mortimer and Stanley Mortimer. Mr. Richard Mortimer is executor and trustee of the family estate, and while not engaged actually in business has displayed the possession of hereditary talent for the management of large interests.

Mr. Mortimer resides at 382 Fifth Avenue, but spends a considerable portion of his time in Europe. He belongs to the Metropolitan, Knickerbocker, Union, City, Racquet, Coaching, Riding and Westminister Kennel clubs, has a country residence at Tuxedo Park, is a member of the Country Club of Westchester County, of the Downtown Association and of the Meadow Brook Hunt, and is a patron of the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He married Eleanor Jay Chapman, the daughter of Henry Grafton Chapman. Mrs. Mortimer is the granddaughter of the Honorable John Jay, United States Minister to Austria, and his wife Eleanor Kingsland Field, daughter of the famous New York merchant, Hickson W. Field. Through her grandfather, who was the third and only surviving son of Judge William Jay, jurist, philanthropist and author, she is descended from the great Chief Justice John Jay. Her great-grandmother was the daughter of John McVickar, one of New York's eminent merchants. Going further back, Mrs. Mortimer traces her descent from Augustus Jay, the Huguenot, who came to New York in 1686, married a daughter of Balthazar Bayard and became the ancestor of one of the most distinguished families in American annals.

415

LEVI PARSONS MORTON

A MONG the influential Puritans of New England was George Morton, or Mourt, who was born in Yorkshire in 1585, and married, in 1612, Juliana Carpenter, daughter of Alexander Carpenter. He managed the Mayflower expedition in 1620, and coming to New England on the Anne, the last of the three Pilgrim ships, in 1623, settled in Middleboro, Mass. His book, Mourt's Relation, published in London in 1622, is the earliest account of the planting of the Plymouth Colony. His son, John Morton, 1616-1673, was a freeman of Plymouth in 1648, deputy to the General Court in 1662, and one of the twenty-six original proprietors of Middleboro. John Morton, Jr., of Plymouth, 1650-1717, kept the first public school ever opened in America. His wife was Mary Ring, daughter of Andrew Ring, and his son, Captain Ebenezer Morton, 1696-1750, married Mercy Foster, daughter of John and Hannah (Stetson) Foster. Ebenezer Morton, Jr., born in Middleboro in 1726, married Sarah Cobb, their son, Livy Morton, 1760-1838, being a soldier in the Revolution and marrying Hannah Dailey, daughter of Daniel and Hannah Dailey, of Easton, Me. Their eldest son was the Reverend Daniel O. Morton, 1788-1852, who was graduated from Middlebury College, Vermont, in 1812, and ordained to the ministry in 1814. He was the father of the Honorable Levi P. Morton.

The mother of Mr. Levi P. Morton was Lucretia Parsons, daughter of the Reverend Justin and Electa (Frairy) Parsons. Her father, who was born in 1759, in Northampton, Mass., served in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War. He was a son of Benjamin Parsons and Rebecca Sheldon, grandson of Captain Ebenezer Parsons and great-grandson of Joseph Parsons, who was for twenty-three years a Judge in Hampshire County, Mass. Joseph Parsons was a son of Cornet Joseph Parsons, and was one of the founders of Springfield, Mass. Other Colonial ancestors of Mr. Morton are, Robert Stetson, of the Plymouth Colony; Elder John Strong, of Plymouth and Northampton; Rowland Stebbins, of Roxbury and Northampton; John Frairy, of Dedham, and Stephen Hopkins, who came on the Mayflower in 1620.

Mr. Levi Parsons Morton was born in Shoreham, Vt., May 16th, 1824, was graduated from the local academy, went into business in Hanover, N. H., and in 1849 engaged in mercan- tile life in Boston. In 1863, he founded the banking house of Morton, Bliss & Co., and at the same time established the branch London house of Morton, Rose & Co. In 1878, he was appointed honorary commissioner from the United States to the Paris Exhibition and the same year was elected a Member of Congress from a New York City district, being reelected in 1880. President James A. Garfield appointed him Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to France in 1881, and he made a distinguished success in that diplomatic position. He was elected Vice-President of the United States in 1888, and was Governor of the State of New York, 1895-96.

Mr. Morton has been twice married. His first wife was Lucy Kimball, daughter of Elijah H. and Sarah W. Kimball, of Flatlands, Long Island. She died in 1871. His present wife was Anna L. Street, daughter of William L. Street and Susan Kearny. She is descended from several of the old Manhattan families. Her grandfather was General Randall S. Street, and her grandmother Cornelia Billings, daughter of Major Andrew Billings, a Revolutionary soldier, by his wife, Cornelia Livingston, who was the granddaughter of Gilbert Livingston and Cornelia Beekman and great-granddaughter of Robert Livingston and Alida (Schuyler) Van Rensselaer. Mr. and Mrs. Morton have five daughters, Edith L., Lena K., Helen S., Alice and Mary Morton. The city residence of the family is in upper Fifth Avenue, and they have a large country estate, Ellerslie, at Rhinecliff-on-Hudson. Mr. Morton is a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Union League, Lawyers', Republican and Tuxedo clubs, the Century Association, the Downtown Association, the New England Society, the Sons of the American Revolution and the American Geographical Society, and is a supporter of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the National Academy of Design. Dartmouth College, in 1881, and Middlebury College, in 1883, bestowed upon him the degree of LL. D.

416

WILLIAM JAMES MORTON, M. D.

D R. MORTON'S paternal line begins with Robert Morton, one of an old Scotch family who, early in the eighteenth century, settled at Mendon, Mass., and then moved to New Jersey, purchasing a tract which is now Elizabethtown. James Morton, his son, was a member of the Friends' colony at Smithfield, R. I., but with his son Thomas fought throughout the Revolution. James Morton, son of Thomas, married Rebecca Needham, of Charlton, Mass., and established himself in that town, where his son, William Thomas Green Morton, was born August 9th, 1819. The discovery of surgical anesthesia remains to this day the brightest page in our country's medical annals. Its discoverer, Dr. William T. G. Morton, manifested scientific tendencies in early life, and entered, in 1844, the medical department of Harvard. His great discovery, the use of sulphuric ether to suppress pain, to which his friend, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, first applied the term " Anæsthesia," was the result of prolonged investigation. He first demonstrated that a patient could be made unconscious under the severest operation at the Massachusetts General Hospital on October 16th, 1846. In October, 1896, the semi-centennial of this event was fittingly commemorated at the hospital.

Professional honors were showered upon Dr. Morton; he received decorations from the Emperor of Russia and the King of Sweden and Norway, the Montyon prize of the French Academy, and many honorary degrees, while the Massachusetts General Hospital presented him with a silver box containing one thousand dollars in gold. But despite six congressional reports in his favor, he received neither substantial reward nor honor from his own country. After his death, the public erected a monument over his grave in Mount Auburn Cemetery, and one commemorating his discovery stands in the Public Garden at Boston, while his name is inscribed on the Massachusetts State House and the Boston Public Library. During the Civil War, Dr. Morton volunteered his services in relation to the use of anæsthesia in the army, and was present at Fredericksburg and with Grant in the Wilderness, the latter according him special facilities. He died suddenly at New York City in 1868.

His wife, the present Dr. Morton's mother, was Elizabeth Whitman, daughter of Edward Whitman, of Farmington, Conn., who still lives, a central figure in her son's home. She is descended from Ensign John Whitman, of Weymouth, Mass., two of her ancestors, Zachariah and Samuel Whitman, having graduated at Harvard in 1668 and 1696 respectively. Of the three sons of this marriage, two, William James and N. B. Morton, adopted the medical profession. The second son, Edward W., served in Africa in the Cape Mounted Rifles and won the Victoria medal.

Dr. William James Morton, the eldest son, was born in Boston, in 1845, attended the Boston Latin School, was graduated from Harvard in 1867, and from its medical department in 1872. He studied in Vienna and Paris, spent two years in South Africa, and in 1878 made his permanent home in New York, where he has since practiced his profession, making frequent and prolonged visits to Europe, Mexico and other countries. Dr. Morton not only defended the claims of his father to his great discovery, but has followed his footsteps by original research, particularly in neurology and electricity. He is an expert upon the X-ray and has written much upon medical and general topics, and is a member of the leading medical societies, as well as of the University Club, Harvard Alumni and New York Electrical Society, and is a fellow of the American Geographical Society. He has held professorships in the medical colleges, and is an authority upon diseases of the mind and nervous system.

In 1880, Dr. Morton married Elizabeth Campbell Lee, daughter of Colonel Washington Lee, of Wilkesbarre, Pa. Three of Mrs. Morton's great-grandfathers, Colonel Lazarus Stewart, Lieutenant John Jameson and Captain Andrew Lee, fought in the Revolution, and Abigail Alden, the wife of John Jameson, was descended from John Alden. Besides his residence in the city, the Doctor has a beautiful summer home, Island Redwood, of one hundred acres, in the Bay of Sag Harbor. He is a talented amateur landscape painter and is fond of outdoor sports.

417

HOPPER STRIKER MOTT

I N his name and person Mr. Hopper Striker Mott unites three important families of New York. The Mott family was originally French-de la Motte by name-but moved to England centuries ago. It is an old Essex family, dating as far back as 1375. The crest and arms, which are used by the Motts in America, were granted in 1615, and are: Arms, a crescent argent; crest, an estoile of eight points argent. Motto, Spectemur agendo. The present seat of the family is Barningham Hall, Hanworth, Norfolk.

From this Essex house came Adam Mott, the founder of the family in America, who has been thought by many to have been the Adam Mott who arrived in Boston in 1635, and settled in Hingham in 1636 and in Portsmouth, R. I., in 1638, and was supposed to have removed to Long Island about 1646. This opinion has been accepted by Thomson in his History of Long Island, but Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island and Savage's Dictionary of New England make no mention of the removal to Long Island.

Little is authentically known concerning the founder of the New York Mott family. According to the records of the Dutch Church of New Amsterdam, Adam Mott, of Essex, England, was married, July 28th, 1647, to Jane Hulet, of Buckingham, England. In 1646 (New York Historical Documents, Volume XIV., page 66), the Dutch Government granted him land on Mespath Kill (Newtown Creek). According to the Albany records (IV., page 187-9-190), he was a witness in court in 1644 and in 1645. On the other hand, the New England Adam Mott was from Cambridge, England; the names of his two wives, the dates of the marriages and the names of his children are different from those of Adam Mott of New Amsterdam. The will of the latter, dated March 12th, 1681-2, is in the Surrogate's office of New York. That the New York Adam Mott was not the one who came to Boston in 1635 and later to Hingham, Mass., appears from these facts.

About 1655, Adam Mott of Essex became the first Adam Mott of Hempstead, Long Island. In Book A, the oldest annals of its founders, he appears as one of the five townsmen, chosen March 17th, 1657. One of his descendants now occupies the homestead built by a son in 1715 at Mott's Point, Hempstead Harbor. On February 24th, 1663, as a deputy from Hempstead on behalf of the English, he signed the agreement between Captain John Scott and Governor Petrus Stuyvesant, looking to friendly intercourse between Dutch and English. In 1684, he was one of the delegation which procured a new patent from Governor Dongan. For a second wife he married, in 1667, Elizabeth Richbell, daughter of John Richbell, original patentee of Mamaroneck. He died in 1689, aged about sixty-eight years.

By his first wife, Adam Mott had eight children: Adam, Jacobus, Grace, Elizabeth, Henry, John, Joseph and Gershom. One of the sons of Joseph Mott was Jacob Mott, 1715-1805. He married Abigail Jackson, and was the father of fourteen children. His fourth child, Isaac Mott, born in 1743, married Anne Coles, of Glen Cove, Long Island. She was the Anne Mott who ministered to the American prisoners confined in the military prisons in New York. The family is still in possession of the table cloth given to her in gratitude by those she cared for. She died July 16th, 1840, at the age of ninety-two, and was buried from the Mott homestead in Bloomingdale.

There were four children born to Isaac and Anne (Coles) Mott: Samuel, Jordan, Jacob and Joshua. Jordan Mott, born at Hempstead Harbor in 1768, died in 1840. He married Lavinia Striker (known thereafter as Winifred Mott), daughter of James and Mary Hopper Striker, of Striker's Bay, September 24th, 1801. The youngest son of this union was M. Hopper Mott, 1815-1864, who was the father of Mr. Hopper Striker Mott. Other marriages have been made with old Knickerbocker stock by members of this family, so that, besides direct descent from their Quaker forbears, the Motts of the present generation are allied to the Hoppers, Strikers, Schuylers, Van Rensselears, Van Dorens, Dykmans and Milderbergers.

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Prominent families of New York; being an account in biographical form of individuals and families distinguished as representatives of the social, professional and civic life of New York city, Part 69

Author: Weeks, Lyman Horace, ed Publication date: 1897 Publisher: New York, The Historical company Number of Pages: 650

Author: Weeks, Lyman Horace, ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: New York, The Historical company
Number of Pages: 650