Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/460

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422
MORRISON
MORSE

the same Scotch family that settled in London- deny, N. H., in 1719. In early life he was a sea- captain, but he entered politics in 1855 as a mem- ber of parliament from Colchester county, N. S., and served for fifteen years, tie was a leader in many important questions under consideration, was immigration agent for the province, and in 1876 was raised to the legislative council. He in- troduced and carried through parliament the biU for voting by ballot, was in 1864 one of seven that revised the provincial statutes, and was sev- eral times an agent of the iS^ova Scotian govern- ment to the Dominion parliament at Ottawa.


MORRISON, William, Canadian explorer, b. in Montreal in 1785 ; d. on Morrison's island, Can- ada, 7 Aug., 1866. His ancestors, the Morrisons, long held dominion in the island of Lewis, Scot- land. He entered the service of the New York fur company at Fond du Lac in 1802, and, becom- ing a partner soon afterward, explored the north- west territories in 1803-'15. He was in charge of John Jacob Astor's fur business in 1816-'26, after which he retired to Berthier, Canada. It is claimed for JMr. ^Morrison that he preceded Schoolcraft in the discovery of the sources of the Mississippi, and he rendered other services to geography. He mar- ried an Indian wife, and one of their sons accom- panied John C. Fremont on one of his early ex- ploring expeditions.


MORRISON, William Ralls, congressman, b. in' Monroe county. 111., 14 Sept., 1825. He was educated at McKendree college, served as a private in the Mexican war, and subsequently studied law and was admitted to the bar. He was clerk of Monroe county in 1852-'6, served in the legisla- ture for the next three years, and was speaker of the house in 1859. He organized the 49th Illinois regiment at the beginning of the civil war, and was wounded at Fort Donelson. While in com- mand of that regiment in the field, he was elected to congress as a Democrat, and served in 1863-'5, but was defeated for the 39th and 40th congresses. He was again chosen in 1872, serving from 1873 till 1887, and in 1873-'5 was chairman of the com- mittee of ways and means. In 1886 he was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election. He was a delegate to the National Union convention in 1866, and to the New York Democratic convention in 1868. In March, 1887, he was appointed by Presi- dent Cleveland a member of the interstate com- merce commission for a term of five years.


MORROW, Jeremiah, senator, b. in Gettysburg, Pa., 6 Oct., 1771; d. in Warren county, Ohio, 22 March, 1852. He removed to the northwest territory in 1795, and in 1802 was a delegate to the convention that formed the Ohio constitution. He was elected to congress as a Democrat on the admission to Ohio into the union, served in 1803-'13, and was chairman of the committee on public lands. In 1814 he was a commisssioner to treat with all the Indians west of the Miami river. He was a member of the U.S. Senate in 1813-'19, governor of Ohio in 1822-'26, served in the state senate in 1826-'28, subsequently became canal commissioner, and for several years was president of the Little Miami railroad. In 1841-'43 he again served in congress.


MORROW, Thomas Vaughn, phvsieian, b. in Kentucky in 1804; d. 16 July, 1850. "He founded a reformed medical school at Worthington, Ohio, in 1832, under the patronage of Bishop Philander Chase, and on its close in 1845 established at Cin- cinnati, as its successor, the American eclectic medical institute, in which he held the chair of the practice of medicine till his death, thus origi- nating the eclectic school of practice in this coun- try. He was the author of a treatise on " The Practice of Medicine " (1852).


MORSE, Abner, genealogist, b. in Medway, Mass., 5 Sept., 1793; d. in Sharon, Mass., 16 May, 1865. He was graduated at Brown in 1816, and at Andover theological seminary in 1819. After be- ing ordained on 16 Dec, 1819, he was pastor of the Congregational church in Nantucket, Mass., until 1822, and later he filled pastorates inSennett, N. Y., Bound Brook, N. J., and South Bend, Ind. Here he procured a charter for a college and ap- plied himself to the study of natural history, par- ticularly geology, lecturing on that subject. Sub- sequently he delivered courses of scientific lectures in various parts of the United States, but finally settled in Sharon, Mass., where he devoted himself entirely to genealogical pursuits. His publications include "Memorial of the Morses" (1850); "De- scendants of Laurence Litchfield " (1855) ; " Gene- alogy of Early Planters in Massachusetts" (Bos- ton, 1855) ; " Genealogical Register of Sherborn, Hollister, and Medway, Mass." (1855) ; " Descend- ants of Capt. John Grant " (1857) ; " Descendants of Several Ancient Puritans " (3 vols., 1857-"60) ; and " A Genealogical Record of Several Families bearing the Name of Cutler in the United States," issued posthumously (1867).


MORSE, David Appleton, physician, b. in Ells- worth. Ohio, 12 Dec, 1840. He was graduated at Cleveland medical college in 1862, and began prac- tice in Edinburgh, Ohio. In 1862-'5 he served in the U. S. army as surgeon, at first under Gen. William S. Rosecrans in Tennessee, and then under Gen. Williani T. Sherman in Georgia. After his resignation he returned to Edinburgh and subse- quently removed to Alliance, Ohio, but in 1867 settled in Madison county, where he remained for ten years. In 1877 he was called to Columbus, Ohio, where he has since held the professorship of nervous disorders and insanity in Starling medical college and the post of physician to Columbus hospital for the insane. More recently he accepted the superintendency of the Oxford retreat for nervous and mental diseases. Dr. Morse is a mem- ber of the American, the Ohio, and other medical societies. He is editor of the department of nerv- ous disorders and insanity in the " Lancet and Ob- server," to whose columns, as well as to the trans- actions of societies to which he belongs, he has contributed papers on medical topics.


MORSE, Edward Sylvester, naturalist, b. in Portland, Me., 18 June, 1838. He was educated at the academy in Betliel, Me., and then became a draughtsman in the Portland locomotive-works, meanwhile devoting his leisure to studies in natural history. His work attracted the attention of Louis Agassiz, by whom he was invited to study at the Lawrence scientific school of Harvard, where until 1862 he was assistant. Brachiopods became the subject of his investigations. They had been regarded as mollusks, but after careful research Morse announced that they were to be classed among the worms. This work attracted special attention abroad from famous naturalists, notably Charles Darwin. In 1866 he settled in Salem, and was associated in establishing the " American Naturalist," becoming one of its editors, and in founding the Peabody academy of sciences, of which he was made a curator. His biological investigations continued until 1871 in Salem, during which time he published more than twenty memoirs. He was called in 1871 to the chair of comparative anatomy and zoology in Bowdoin. where he remained for three years, and then returning