Page:One of a thousand.djvu/443

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MORSE. MORSE. 429 '8S, while councilor, was elected to repre- sent his congressional district as the suc- cessor of Governor Long in the 51st Con- gress, by a plurality of 3,684 votes. He is a leader in the cause of temperance, on which subject he has made hundreds of addresses during the last decade. He is a philanthropist, and a warm supporter of every genuine effort for social reform. He is interested in all matters pertaining to the public school question, and participated in the great meeting held in Tremont Temple, Boston, July 29, 1888, earnestly pleading for our free public educational institutions, and against any movement looking toward ELIJAH A. MORSE. the establishment of sectarian schools. Mr. Morse gave his town the ground for the memorial hall, in memory of those who fell in the war for the Union, and has shown his public spirit in every movement for the advancement of his chosen residence. Mr. Morse was married January 1, 1S6S, to Felicia, daughter of Samuel A. Vining, of Holbrook. Of this union are three chil- dren living : Abner, Samuel, and Benjamin. MORSE, GODFREY, was born at Wach- enheim, Bavaria, May 19, 1846, and came to this country while a lad of tender years, and immediately entered upon a thorough course of public school instruction. He was a brilliant scholar, and completed full courses at the Brimmer grammar, the Eng- lish high, and the public Latin schools. He exhibited quite an early proclivity for the law, and his tastes in this direction were carefully cultivated. After concluding his studies in the public schools, he was sent to Harvard College, where he graduated in 1870, receiving the degree of A. B. He then entered the Harvard law school, graduating as LL. B. in 1872. Mr. Morse immediately began practice. As assistant counsel for the United States in the court of commissioners of the Alabama claims, in 1882, '83, and '84, he proved himself fully equipped for the most complicated of legal controversies ; and as attorney for Jordan, Marsh & Co., in the famous cloak- house cases in New York, he earned special honors. Mr. Morse has an extensive prac- tice in mercantile cases ; and among the special concerns whom he represents are the American Surety Company, the Brush Electric Lighting Company, and many of the large mercantile firms of Boston and New York. Mr. Morse was a member of the Boston school committee for three years, from 1S76 to '7S inclusive. During 1882 and '83 he was a member of the Boston common council, and was president of the council in 1883, and a trustee of the public library. At present he is one of the commissioners for building the new court-house for Suf- folk county. As trustee and clerk of the Boston Home for Incurables, vice-president of the Boston Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews, and trustee of the Boston Dental College, he has been and is a respected and trusted servant. He is a brother of Hon. Leopold Morse, ex-member of Congress. Mr. Godfrey Morse is unmarried. MORSE, JOHN TORREY, JR., son of John Torrey and Lucy Cabot ( Jackson) Morse, was born in Boston, January 9, 1840. In early boyhood he attended the school then kept in the basement of the Park Street church by Thomas Russell Sullivan, a member of the historical Sullivan family of Massachusetts. He afterwards attended the school of Epes Sargent Dixwell. Here he fitted for Harvard College, from which he was graduated in the class of i860. He immediately entered the law office of Hon. John Lowell, Boston, since then judge of the United States district and circuit courts. After two years of study there, he was admitted to the bar, at twenty-two years of age. His tastes, how- ever, led him into lines of work more con-