Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/452

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414
MORRIS
MORRIS

of Brettschneider, translated from the German (Philadelphia, 1831 ; altered ed., entitled " To Rome and Back Again," 1853); "Catechetical Exercises on Luther's Catechism," altered from the German (Baltimore, 1832) ; Von Leonard's " Lectures on Ge- ology," translated from the German (1839) ; " Popu- lar Exposition of the Gospels " (2 vols., 1840) ; " Life of John Arndt " (1853) ; " Life of Martin Behaim, the German Cosmographer " (1856) ; " Life of Catherine de Bora " (1856) ; '• The Blind Girl of Wittenberg " (Philadelphia, 1856) ; " Quaint Say- ings and Doings concerning Luther" (1859); "Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of North America " (1860) ; " Synopsis of the Diurnal Lepidoptera of the United States " (Washington, 1862) ; " The Lords Baltimore " (Baltimore, 1874) ; " Bibliotheea Luther- ana " (Philadelphia, 1876) ; " Fifty Years in the Lutheran Ministry" (1878); "A Day in Caper- naum." translated from Franz Delitzsch (1879) ; " The Diet of Augsburg " (1879) ; " Augsburg Con- fession and the Thirty-nine Articles " (1879) ; "Journeys of Luther" (1880); "Luther at Wart- burg and Coburg " (1882) ; " Life of Luther," trans- lated from Kostlin (1883) ; " Lutheran Doctrine of the Lord's Supper" (1884); and "Memoirs of the Stork Family " (1886).


MORRIS, Lewis, statesman, b. in New York city in 1671 ; d. in Kingsbury, N. J., 21 May, 1746. He was the son of Richard, an officer of Cromwell's army, who emigrated from England to the West Indies, and afterward came to New York and purchased from the Indians about 1650 a tract of 3,000 acres near Harlem. He died in 1673. The son studied law, was made judge of the New Jersey superior court in 1692, and became a member of the council. He was subsequently an active member of the assembly, and an opponent of Gov. Cornbury, against whom he drew up the complaint that was formulated by that body, and presented it in person to Queen Anne. He was chief justice of New York and New Jersey for sev- eral years, state councillor from 1710 till 1738, act- ing governor in 1731, and governor of New Jersey from 1738 till his death. He took an active part in the latter year in bringing about the separation of New York and New Jersey. — His son, Robert Hunter, jurist, b. in Morrisania, N. Y., about 1700 ; d, in Shrewsbury, N. J., 27 Jan., 1764, was chief jus- tice of New Jersey in 1738-'64, member of the coun- cil of New Jersey in 1738, and governor of Pennsyl- vania from 3 Oct., 1754, to 20 Aug., 1756. In 1757, through some misunderstanding, a new chief jus- tice for New Jersey was appointed, but when refer- ence was made to the supreme court of that col- ony, Mr. Justice Nevill decided that Morris's commission " conferred a freehold in the office, and nothing had been shown to divest him there- of," in consequence of which he retained the office till his death. As chief justice he " reduced the pleadings to precision and method, and possessed the great perfection of his office, knowledge and integrity in more perfection than had often been known before in the colonies." " He was comely in appearance, graceful in manners, and of a most imposing presence." Benjamin Franklin said he was " eloquent, an acute sophister, and therefore generally successful in argumentative conversa- tion." — Robert Hunter's son, Robert, jurist, b. in New Brur^wick, N. J., in 1745; d. there, 2 May, 1815, was the first chief justice that took his seat on the bench of the supreme court of New Jersey under the constitution of 1776. Richard Stockton was the first that was chosen, but he de- clined the appointment. Morris's commission was dated 5 Feb., 1777, and he resigned in 1779. He was subsequently appointed by Gen. Washington judge of the U. S. district court of New Jersey in 1789, and held that office until his death. During the latter part of his life his health failed, but the business of his court was unimportant, and his non- attendance occasioned no inconvenience. — Lewis's grandson, Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. in Morrisania, N. Y., in 1726; d. there, 22 Jan.. 1798, was the son of Lewis Morris, chief justice of the vice-admiralty court, who was born in 1698 and died in 1762. He was graduated at Yale in 1746, and at first devoted himself to the care of his extensive estate, but soon began to take an active part in pub- lic affairs. When the authorities at- tempted to enforce the act that re- quired that addi- tional supplies be given to the king's

troops, he did not

hesitate to pronounce it tyrannical and unconstitutional. This bold defiance was so entirely in keeping with the popular tem- per that, just after the battle of Lexington, he was chosen as a delegate to the congress of 1775, and took his seat on 15 May. Subsequently he was placed on a committee, of which Gen. Washington was chairman, to devise ways and means to sup- ply the colonies with ammunition and military stores. At the close of the session he was sent to the western country to assist in the difficult opera- tion of detaching the Indians from their British allies, and inducing them to make common cause with the colonists. He remained at Pittsburg until the following winter, and maintained a constant correspondence with congress on the subject of In- dian afl:airs. He resumed his seat at the beginning of 1776, and was placed on several important com- mittees. Returning to New York, Morris found that the people of the j^rovince, and especially those of the city, did not sympathize with him in his desire for independence, and that Gov. Tryon, although he had been compelled to take refuge on board the British fleet in the harbor, still managed, by the use of letters, proclamations, and conciliatory addresses, to keep the minds of the citizens in a state of hesitancy. Morris, with other patriotic gentlemen, exerted himself to create a better feeling, and induced the committee of safety, on 18 April, 1776, to prohibit, under severe penalties, any intercourse with the royal fleet. When, in the following July, Morris signed the Declaration of Independence, he knew that a large British army had landed within a few miles of his estate, that their armed ships were lying within cannon-shot of his homestead, and that his extensive possessions would probably be given to pillage. Nor was he mistaken. More than a thousand acres of woodland, all located on navigable water, were burned, his house was spoiled and injured, his family driven away, his stock captured, his domestics and tenants dispersed, and the entire property laid waste and ruined. For the next six years, until the evacuation of New York city, he and his family suffered many privations. Early in 1777 he relinquished his seat in congress to his half-