The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Jesup, Morris Ketchum

JESUP, Morris Ketchum, American banker: b. Westport, Conn., 21 June 1830; d. New York city, 22 Jan. 1908. He was engaged in banking in New York 1852-84, but retired from business in the latter year. In 1881 he became president of the New York City Mission and Tract Society, for which he subsequently erected the DeWitt Memorial Church in Rivington Street, in memory of Rev. T. DeWitt, his father-in-law. He was made president of the Five Points House of Industry in 1872; was a founder of the Young Men's Christian Association, of which he was president in 1872. He was also president of the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History in 1881, and of the New York Chamber of Commerce 1899-1907. To the Metropolitan Museum of Art he gave a collection of native woods valued at $100,000; to the Woman's Hospital in New York city, $100,000; and to Yale University and Williams College, also large sums. He endowed the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (q.v.), and gave liberal sums as well as much time and thought to the establishment of schools for the colored population of the South. In 1905 he received the order of knighthood from the Czar of Russia for his philanthropic work. Consult Brown, W. A., ‘Morris Ketchum Jesup’ (New York 1910).