Mor-Myr: Morrow through Myrick

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


MORROW, James, Jefferson County, Indiana, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1839-1840.


MORROW, Jeremiah, 1771-1852, Ohio, political leader, U.S. Senator and Congressman.  Strong supporter of colonization and the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 422; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 235; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 138)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 422:

MORROW, Jeremiah, senator, born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 6 October, 1771; died 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 of Ohio into the Union, served in 1803-'13, and was chairman of the committee on public lands. In 1814 he was commissioner to treat with all the Indians west of Miami river. He was a member of the U. S. senate in 1813-'19, governor of Ohio in 1822-'6, served in the state senate in 1826-'8, subsequently became canal commissioner, and for several years was president of the Little Miami railroad. In 1841-'3 he again served in congress. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


MORSE, Reverend Jedidiah, 1761-1826, geographer, Congregational clergyman, opposed and wrote of moral evils of slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 424; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 245-247; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, p. 91; Mason, 2006, pp. 26, 243n24, 254n30). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 245-247:

MORSE, JEDIDIAH (August 23, 1761-June 9, 1826), Congregational clergyman, "father of American Geography," was born in Woodstock, Connecticut, the eighth child of Jedidiah and Sarah (Child) Morse. After a rather frail boyhood he entered Yale College with the class of 1783, in which "he had a very fair reputation as a scholar ... though he scarcely gave promise of the eminence which he finally attained" (Sprague, Annals, post, p. 251). As a student, he was a member of the Linonian Society and of Phi Beta Kappa. On the eve of graduation he decided to enter the Christian ministry, and with this end in view remained in New Haven for two more years studying theology and supporting himself by teaching and by writing a school textbook in geography. He was licensed to preach in 1785, and for a time taught school and preached in Norwich, Connecticut, returning to Yale as tutor in June 1786. Overwork, a desire to further his geographical studies by travel, and the attractions of an evangelical ministry led him, a few months later, to seek ordination (November 9, 1786) and take the vacant pulpit in Midway, Georgia, where he remained for five months. The following year he preached as candidate for settlement in the Collegiate Presbyterian Churches of New York and in the First Congregational Church of Charlestown, Massachusetts, finally accepting a call from Charlestown. Following his installation, April 30, 1789, he married, May 14, Elizabeth Ann Breese of Shrewsbury, New Jersey, the daughter of Judge Samuel Breese and the grand-daughter of Samuel Finley [q.v.], president of the College of New Jersey. Over the church in Charlestown Morse remained settled for thirty years. As a preacher he was unusually acceptable and popular. Of his sermons and occasional addresses, some twenty-four were published.

In his theological views Morse was a Calvinist and a stanch supporter of orthodoxy. With growing concern, therefore, he observed the inroads of ''Arminianism, blended with Unitarianism" in the Congregational churches of eastern Massachusetts. To combat the progress of these "liberal views" became one of the dominant purposes of his ministry, and it was early his hope to separate the Unitarians from the Orthodox and then draw the Orthodox of different shades into more cordial relations. As the champion of Orthodoxy, Morse stepped to the front following the election of Henry Ware [q.v.] as Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard in 1805. One of the board of overseers, he vigorously opposed this choice on the ground that ware's theological views were not the orthodox views of the donor, and that his election was a violation of the terms and spirit of the Hollis bequest. Furthermore, he made public the orthodox position in his True Reasons on which the Election of a Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard College was opposed at the Board of Overseers, 14 February, 1805 (1805), the appearance of which proved decisive in joining the issue between the liberal and the orthodox within the Congregational order in Massachusetts. Determined that the liberal clergy should not wholly carry the day, he launched the Panoplist in 1805 to uphold and unify the orthodox cause, and this periodical he edited for five years. Equally important in behalf of orthodoxy were his labors in the organization of the General Association of Massachusetts, and in the establishment of Andover Theological Seminary (1808), of which he was one of the most active founders. In Boston itself, he assisted in founding a bulwark of orthodoxy in the Park Street Church (1809), and finally, in publishing the pamphlet, American Unitarianism; -or a Brief History of "The Progress and Present State of the Unitarian Churches in America" (1815), extracted from Thomas Belsham's Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend Theophilus Lindsey (1812), he did more, perhaps, than any one man to force the Unitarian churches out from the Congregational fold. Morse's own church did not escape division, for a Unitarian defection took place in 1816, and continued friction led to his own request for dismissal in 1819.

Not all Morse's energies went into the Unitarian controversy, however. Quite as important, perhaps, were his efforts to further the progress of evangelical truth. He was among the first in America to see the value of tract distribution, and he helped found the New England Tract Society (1814). Equally active were his efforts in the distribution of the Bible, and in 1816 he aided in establishing the American Bible Society. In 1811 he was elected to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and served on the prudential committee of that board until 1819. As secretary of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and others in North America, he took an active interest in the Indians, as well as in the poor whites on the Isles of Shoals. This interest lasted throughout his ministry, and upon leaving Charlestown in 1819 he was commissioned by the government to study the condition of the Indian nations and to render a report, which he published in 1822 (A Report to the Secretary of War . .. on Indian Affairs, Comprising a Narrative of a Tour Performed in the Summer of 1820).

In politics Morse was as conservative as in religion, and quite as outspoken. A strong Federalist, he was startled and dismayed in the 1790's by the rising tide of republicanism and by the prevalence of the "French influence," which seemed to him to threaten "orderly" government and religion in the United States. In 1798 he firmly believed that he had discovered the secret cause of these evils in the spread of Illuminism to this side of the Atlantic, and, giving wide publicity to this rather dubious discovery in three sensational published sermons, he contributed not a little to the wave of popular hysteria which followed the outbreak of the quasi-war with France. So vigorous was his defense of the existing political order that to some of his contemporaries he appeared as a "Pillar of Adamant in the Temple of Federalism." His political convictions led him in 1801 to assist in founding The Mercury and New England Palladian, a vigorous Federalist periodical.

Jedidiah Morse is best remembered, however, as the "father of American Geography." It was while teaching school in New Haven that his interest in geography developed. Dissatisfied with the treatment of America in the existing English texts, he prepared a series of geographical lectures, which were published in 1784 as Geography Made Easy, the first geography to be published in the United States. During the lifetime of its author this famous little text passed through twenty-five editions. So successful was this first effort that he at once projected a larger work which he published in 1789 as The American Geography, and in its later editions as The American Universal Geography. This work passed through seven American and almost as many European editions, and firmly established its author's reputation as "the American Geographer." Largely in recognition of his geographical services the University of Edinburgh honored him with its degree of S.T.D. in 1794. In 1795 he published Elements of Geography, for children, followed in 1797 by The American Gazetteer and in 1802 by A New Gazetteer of the Eastern. Continent, prepared in collaboration with Elijah Parish, all of which passed through several editions, a's did abridgments of these more basic works. During their author's lifetime the Morse geographies virtually monopolized their field in the United States. He was essentially a compiler, drawing his information from the best American and European sources available, as well as from letters and documents sent him from all parts of the country in response to widely published requests for geographical information. At the request of the publisher Morse wrote the article on America for the American edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1790), which was also published separately. In collaboration with Elijah Parish he wrote A Compendious History of New England (1804), the appearance of which gave rise to a famous literary controversy with Hannah Adams [q.v.]. Almost his final literary effort was his Annals of the American Revolution (1824).

Following his removal from Charlestown Morse went to New Haven, where he devoted the closing years of his life to Indian affairs, writing, and occasional preaching. In personal appearance he was very prepossessing. "The tall, slender form, the well shaped head, a little bald, but covered thinly with fine silken powdered hair, falling gracefully into curls, gave him, when only middle-aged, a venerable aspect, while the benignant expression of his whole countenance and especially of his bright, speaking eye won for him at first sight respect and love" (S. E. Morse, quoted in Sprague, Life, post, p. 281). In dress and manners he was "a gentleman of the old school." Temperamentally he was inclined to be sanguine, impulsive, and rather sensitive, which tendencies made him, perhaps, over controversial at times; but his most marked characteristics were his tremendous industry and intellectual activity. To his friend Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817 [q. v. ], he was "as full of resources as an egg is of meat" (Prime, post, p. 4). Of the eleven children born to him and his wife, three survived infancy: Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Sidney Edwards Morse [qq.v.], and Richard Cary Morse.

[The chief source for the life of Morse is a manuscript life by his son, Richard Cary Morse, the property of the late Richard Cary Morse of New York. Published sources include W. B. Sprague, The Life of Jedidiah Morse (1874), and Annals American Pulpit, volume II (1857); F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches Graduates Yale College, volume IV (1907); S. I. Prime, The Life of Samuel F. B. Morse (1875); E. L. Morse, Samuel F. B. Morse; His Letters and Journals (2 volumes, 1914); Columbian Register (New Haven), June 10, 1826. For his part in the Illuminati episode see V. Stauffer, New England and the Bavarian Illuminati (1918). 

W.R.W.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 424:

MORSE, Jedidiah, clergyman, born in Woodstock, Connecticut, 23 August, 1761; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 9 June, 1826. He was graduated at Yale in 1783, and in September of that year established a school for young ladies in New Haven, meanwhile pursuing theological studies under Dr. Jonathan Edwards and Dr. Samuel Watts. In the summer of 1785 he was licensed to preach, but continued to occupy himself with teaching. He became a tutor at Yale in June, 1786, but, resigning this office, was ordained on 9 November, 1786, and settled in Medway, Georgia, where he remained until August of the following year. He spent the winter of 1787-'8 in New Haven in geographical work, preaching on Sundays to vacant parishes in the vicinity. In May, 1787, he was invited to preach at Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he was installed on 30 April, 1789. This pastorate he held until 1820, when he removed to New Haven, and there spent the remainder of his life. He took great interest in the subject of civilizing and Christianizing Indians, and in 1820 he was appointed by the secretary of war to visit and observe various tribes on the border, in order to ascertain their actual condition, and to devise the most suitable means for their improvement. This work occupied his attention during two winters and the results of his investigations were embodied in a “Report to the Secretary of War on Indian Affairs” (New Raven, 1822). In 1795 he received the degree of D. D. from the University of Edinburgh, and he was an active member of the Massachusetts historical society and of various literary and scientific bodies. Throughout his life he was much occupied with religious controversy, and in upholding the faith of the New England church against the assaults of Unitarianism. Ultimately his persevering opposition to the so-called liberal views of religion brought on him a persecution that affected deeply his naturally delicate health. He was very active in 1804 in the movement that resulted in enlarging the Massachusetts general assembly of Congregational ministers, and in 1805 unsuccessfully opposed, as a member of the board of overseers, the election of Henry Ware to the Hollis professorship of divinity in Harvard. Dr. Morse did much toward securing the foundation of Andover theological seminary, especially by his successful efforts in preventing the establishment of a rival institution in Newburg, which had been projected by the Hopkinsians. He participated in the organization of the Park street church in Boston in 1808, when all the Congregational churches of that city, except the Old South church, had abandoned the orthodox faith. In 1805 he established the “Panopolist” for the purpose of illustrating and defending the commonly received orthodoxy of New England, and continued its sole editor for five years. This journal still exists as “The Missionary Herald.” Dr. Morse published twenty-five sermons and addresses on special occasions; also “A Compendious History of New England,” with Reverend Elijah Harris (Charlestown, 1804); and “Annals of the American Revolution” (Hartford, 1824). He early showed considerable interest in the study of geography, and adapted from some of the larger English works a text-book that was so frequently copied by his pupils that he published it as “Geography Made Easy” (New Haven, 1784), and it was the first work of that character published in the United States. Subsequently he issued “American Geography” (Elizabethtown, 1789); “The American Gazetteer” (London, 1789); and “Elements of Geography” (1797). These books had an extensive circulation, and gained for him the title of “Father of American Geography.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 424.


MORTON, Elihu P., Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1841-44


MORTON, Marcus (February 19, 1784-February 6, 1864), jurist, governor of Massachusetts.  His life-long opposition to slavery led him to join the Free-Soil party, of which he was delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1853, and by which he was elected to the state legislature in 1858.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 259-260:

MORTON, MARCUS (February 19, 1784-February 6, 1864), jurist, governor of Massachusetts, was born in Freetown, Massachusetts, the son of Nathaniel and Mary (Cary) Morton, and a descendant of George Morton [q.v.] who emigrated to America in 1623. His early education was received at home, and when he was fourteen years of age he was placed under the Reverend Calvin Chaddock, at Rochester, Massachusetts, for further instruction. In 1801 he entered Brown University with the sophomore class. Here he began to show much interest in the doctrines of Jefferson with their appeal to reason against custom and precedent and their emphasis on the rights of man. His Commencement oration argued for one of the principles he maintained throughout his life economy in public affairs, since extravagance leads to privilege and inequality. After graduation in 1804, he studied law for a year in the office of Judge Seth Padelford, at Taunton, and then entered Tapping Reeve's law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, where he was a schoolmate of John C. Calhoun.

Admitted to the Norfolk bar in 1807, he began to practise in Taunton, and on December 23 of the same year married Charlotte Hodges, daughter of James and Joanna (Tillinghast) Hodges, by whom he had twelve children, among them Marcus Morton [q.v.]. Almost at once he became active in politics, and after holding a number of minor offices was from 1817 to 1821 representative in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth congresses. He was lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, 1824-25, and in the latter year became acting governor on the death of Governor William Eustis [q.v.]. In 1825 Governor Levi Lincoln [q.v.] appointed Morton to the Massachusetts supreme court, a position he held until his resignation in January 1840. His accomplishments as a judge were marked by his ready knowledge of legal principles, his sound judgment in applying them, his patience, courtesy, and strength of character. Morton's perennial candidacy for governor on the Democratic ticket was one of the most significant features of his life. From 1824 to 1848 the political forces in Massachusetts were fairly definitely aligned. The two major parties were the conservative element, consisting of the wealthy aristocrats, the shipowners, bankers, and manufacturers, largely concentrated in Boston; and the more liberal and progressive element comprising the farmers, workingmen, and recent immigrants. It was at the head of the latter group that Morton placed himself, and for sixteen successive years (1828-43) was its candidate for governor. Only twice during that period was he successful. In 1839 he defeated Edward Everett [q.v.] by the majority of a single vote, and in 1842 he was chosen over John Davis by the Senate, neither candidate having received a majority. As governor he advocated and secured retrenchment in public expenditures, reduced the number of supreme court justices from five to three, and abolished the right of appeal from the court of common plea s to the supreme court except on questions of law, this privilege having made the administration of justice slow, expensive, and uncertain.

In 1845 Morton was appointed collector of the port of Boston, which position he held for four years. In 1848 he refused to run for vice-president with Van Buren, for he could not bring himself to bolt his party. Later, however, his life-long opposition to slavery led him to join the Free-Soil party, of which he was delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1853, and by which he was elected to the state legislature in 1858. He was a man of unquestioned probity, whose poise, serenity, and character made him generally admired. In his championship of the lower classes, his distrust of overlarge corporations, and his advocacy of shorter hours for the working man he was ahead of his time, and perhaps partly for this reason a large measure of political success was denied him. He was for thirty-two years an overseer of Harvard. He died at Taunton.

[J. K. Allen, George Morton of Plymouth Colony and Some of His Descendants (1908); A History of Freetown, Massachusetts (1902); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); U. S. Magazine and Democratic Review, October 1841; Collections of the Old Colony Historical Society, no. 7 (1909); Law Reporter, February 1840; A. B. Darling, Political Changes in Massachusetts, 1824-1848 (1925); "Necrology of Brown University, for the Year 1863-4," Providence Daily Journal, September 6, 1864; Boston Daily Courier, February 8, 1864; Morton's letter books in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society; date of birth from Brown Historical Catalog: some sources give December 19.]

S.H.P.


MORTON, Oliver Perry, 1823-1877, statesman, lawyer, jurist, anti-slavery activist.  Member of the Republican Party.  U.S. Senator and Governor of Indiana, 1861. He was against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and when the Democratic state convention indorsed the Douglas measure he went over to the People's party, the forerunner of the Republican party in Indiana. He helped with the formation of the new party along national lines.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 431-432; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 262-264; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 956; Wm. D. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton (2 volumes, 1899); W. M. French, Life, Speeches, State Papers and Public Services of Governor Oliver P. Morton (1864); Memorial Addresses on ... Oliver P. Morton . .. in the Senate and House of Representatives (1878);). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 262-264:

MORTON, OLIVER PERRY (August 4, 1823- November 1, 1877), governor of Indiana and senator, was born in the decaying frontier village of Salisbury, Wayne County, Indiana. His full name was Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton. Both his parents, James Throck and Sarah (Miller) Morton, were of New Jersey birth, and on the paternal side the ancestral line began with John Throckmorton who emigrated from England with Roger Williams in 1631 and later settled in Providence Plantations. Oliver's father was the first to write his surname as Morton. When the boy was less than three years old his mother died, and he was taken to the farm of his maternal grandparents near Springfield (now Springdale), Ohio, where two of his aunts gave him their solicitous care. Scotch Presbyterianism pervaded their home, and he seems to have received an overdose of it, for he never became a church member, and later he was credited, quite properly, with exceedingly unorthodox views on religion. One of his aunts taught a neighboring school, which he attended, but much of his early education came from a rather indiscriminate reading of all the books he could get. For one year he attended the Wayne County Seminary at Centerville, Indiana, to which his father had removed when the village of Salisbury sank into hopeless decline. On his grandfather's death in 1838 he went to work as became a frontier youth of fifteen years, at first as a drug clerk, and later, when he quarreled with his employer and lost his job, as an apprentice to his brother William, who was a hatter. He thoroughly disliked the hatter's trade and obtained his release from service six months before the four years for which he was bound had ended. Financed by a little money from his grandfather's estate, he entered Miami University, where he spent two years in study, excelling in mathematics, learning to write good English, and enjoying himself thoroughly in debate.

In 1845 he left college to read law in a Centerville office, and in spite of his dwindling financial resources he was married on May 15, 1845, to Lucinda M. Burbank, also of Centerville. Five children were born to them, of whom the three sons survived him. Faced with. the necessity of maintaining a home of his own, he speedily began the practice of law, gained some advertising through an unsuccessful race for prosecuting attorney in 1848 on the Democratic ticket, and when he was only twenty-nine years old served out the unfinished term of a circuit judge who had died in office. Doubtless his brief judicial career, less than eight months, convinced him that he needed further legal training, for, before resuming his practice at Centerville, he attended one term at the Law School of the Cincinnati College. After this his progress in his profession was rapid, and in a few years he became the leader of the Wayne County bar. Since he was an unusually effective pleader, his services were in great demand, especially by railway corporations, whose fees helped out his income materially. His formal entrance into politics coincided with the beginnings of the Republican party. Earlier he had no particular sentiment on the slavery question and had even opposed the Wilmot proviso as prejudicial to harmony within the Democratic ranks. By 1854, however, his views had changed. He revolted openly against the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and when the Democratic state convention of that year indorsed the Douglas measure he went over to the People's party, the forerunner of the Republican party in Indiana. He helped with the formation of the new party along national lines, and in 1856 he was its unsuccessful candidate for governor of Indiana. For the next four years he divided his time between politics and his profitable law practice, doubtless expecting to be the Republican candidate again in 1860. But this was not to be. For reasons of expediency the party leaders gave the nomination to Henry S. Lane, who had been a Whig, consoling Morton, who had been a Democrat, with second place on the ticket and the promise that in case the Republicans won the legislature Lane should be speedily transferred to the United States Senate, and Morton should succeed to the governorship.

All fell out as planned, and thus it happened that he became Indiana's war-time governor, according to James Ford Rhodes, "the ablest and most energetic of the war governors of the Western States" (History of the United States, volume IV, p. 182). Believing that war was necessary and inevitable, he visited Washington soon after Lincoln's inauguration to use his influence in favor of a vigorous policy towards the South, and he did what he could to prepare his state for the impending struggle. When at last the president's call for troops came, Indiana responded loyally, offering more than twice the number of men asked. Morton expected the war to be a hard-fought contest, and he was det ermined that none of those who volunteered should be refused th e opportunity to serve. He therefore called the legislature into special session to provide ways and means for accepting into state service such men as the national government could not use at the moment. To this and to other requests of the governor, who believed that the war should be made "instant and terrible" (Foulke, post, I, 118), the legislature responded with alacrity. Throughout the struggle he put the full power of his office and of his personality behind every request of the administration for men. Thanks in no small part to his  efforts, there were over 150,000 enlistments from Indiana during the four years with only a negligible number of men drafted.

He was at his best in his repeated and notable triumphs over the discouraged and disloyal agitators who tried to weaken the state's effective support of the war. Indiana, like the rest of the Old Northwest, had a large Southern element in its population in which sympathy with the Southern cause and opposition to the war soon became rife. Orders like the Knights of the Golden Circle, the Order of American Knights, or the Sons of Liberty did their best to retard enlistments, encourage desertions, free Confederate prisoners, and even form a new and independent northwestern confederacy. When the election of 1862 was held, Union military reverses and the absence of thousands of voters at the front strengthened the forces of discontent so that the Democratic legislature and state officers elected in Indiana that year w ere of pacifist views. According to a provision of the Indiana constitution that gave the governor a four-year, term, he remained in office, providentially commissioned, he felt, to thwart all "Copperhead" plots. In order to accomplish this end heroic measures were required; for example, a scheme of the majority in the legislature to take his military power from him and to vest it in a board of its own choosing was frustrated only by the withdrawal of the Republican legislators and, ultimately, by the adjournment of the session for want of a quorum. Since the usual appropriation bills had not been passed, he faced the alternative of calling the obnoxious legislature together again or himself raising the money to keep the state government in operation. To the surprise and chagrin of the Democrats, he chose the latter course. He used some profits from the manufacture of munitions in an arsenal he had established, obtained advances from private citizens and from loyal county officials, and borrowed heavily from the governernment at Washington. The legislature was not recalled, the state government functioned normally except that the governor reigned as a sort of dictator, and the business of helping win the war went on without relaxation. In 1864 he was reelected governor, and a Republican legislature was chosen with him, which in the main supported him in what he had done.

The arduous labor of war time told on him physically, and during the summer of 1865 he was visited by a stroke of paralysis that left him a hopeless cripple but did not cloud his brain. A trip to France in search of medical aid was of no avail for that purpose, but he delivered a personal message from President Johnson to Napoleon III, which pointed out the wisdom of the removal of the French troops from Mexico without formal demand from the United States and which was doubtless of some consequence. Returning to the United States he refused, in spite of his infirmity, to retire from politics, and he attacked the Democrats in the campaign of 1866 with a ruthlessness and a ferocity that set the pace for Republican orators for many a year. In an age of extreme partisanship his partisanship was rank. He saw no good in the Democratic party, the war-time record of which he never forgave, and he viewed individual Democrats with grave suspicions. Any Democratic victory seemed to him a dire calamity.

In 1867 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served until his death. Reconstruction was then the all-absorbing problem, and to it he devoted much thought. Immediately at the close of the war he had favored some such generous terms as were proposed by Lincoln and Johnson, but party necessities drew him irresistibly in the direction of the harsher policies advocated by the congressional leaders, and in the end he became one of the ablest and one of the least compromising of the supporters of "thorough" Reconstruction. Probably he did more than any other man to obtain the ratification of the negro suffrage amendment to the Constitution (Foulke, post, II, 117-18). His record on financial matters was as inconsistent as his record on reconstruction. In his earlier senatorial career he was quite free from soft-money heresies. Indeed, he formulated and introduced in 1868 a bill for the resumption of specie payments on January 1, 1872, that differed little from, the bill under which later on resumption was, actually accomplished, but hard times following the panic of 1873 seem to have changed his opinions on the money question. Familiar with the. problems of the western debtors, he saw clearly: their point of view, and he came to ridicule as fanaticism the same kind of insistence on a" return to specie payments of which, as he freely confessed, he had once been guilty himself. The hard times emergency, he thought, justified further, strictly limited, issues of paper (Foulke, post, II, 319-20).

He was a formidable contender for th e Republican nomination of 1876, but his physical condition, his soft-money tendencies, and his strict partisanship with its attendant lack of enthusiasm about civil reform, all told against him, while Hayes had no such liabilities. He took an active part in the dispute over the election of that year and was convinced that the Republicans had won. He opposed the plan embodied in th  electoral bill fo r settling the contest because of the chance it gave the Democrats to secure the presidency, but as a member of the electoral commission established when the bill became a law, he had a chance to do his full duty by his party. After the contest was over he went to Oregon to help investigate charges of bribery made against a newly elected senator from that state. He was unsparing of himself on the trip and perhaps on this account suffered, in August 1877, another stroke of paralysis. Returning at one to Indiana, he went first to the residence of his wife's mother in Richmond a d later to his own home in Indianapolis, where he died.

He was to a remarkable degree the typical politician of his period. He had, to be sure, a much higher sense of honor than some, and in money matters he was incorruptible. Yet his fanatical devotion to party, his glory in combat, his intolerance of opposition, his heated rhetoric were distinctly of his time. Powerful physically, of commanding voice and presence, he feared no man, nor did the affliction of his later years abate his courage. He was an able lawyer, but he preferred politics, and probably he was not greatly tempted by Grant's offer of the chief-justiceship on the death of Chase. To the end of his life he was a power to be reckoned with in American politics, loved and honored by his friends, cordially hated by his enemies, and almost never ignored. Like many another he coveted the presidency, but his failure to obtain it did not in the least embitter him.

[Wm. D. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton (2 volumes, 1899); W. M. French, Life, Speeches, State Papers and Public Services of Governor Oliver P. Morton (1864); Memorial Addresses on ... Oliver P. Morton . .. in the Senate and House of Representatives (1878); Oliver P. Morton  by direction of the Indiana Republican State Central Committee (1876); J. A. Woodburn, "Party Politics in Indiana during the Civil War" American Historical Assn. Report,  I902, volume I (1903); Logan Esary, A History of Indiana  (1918), volume II; Indianapolis Journal, November 2, 1877.]

J. D. H.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 431-432:

MORTON, Oliver Perry, statesman, born in Saulsbury, Wayne county, Ind., 4 August, 1823; died in Indianapolis, Ind., 1 November, 1877. His father, a native of New Jersey, whose ancestors came from England with Roger Williams, dropped the first syllable in the family name of Throckmorton. At the age of fifteen the son was taken from school and indentured to a brother, who was a hatter. After working at this trade four years he determined to fit himself for the bar, spent two years at Miami university, studied law at Centreville, and began practice there in 1847. He soon attained professional eminence, and was elected a circuit judge in 1852, but at the end of a year, when his term expired by the adoption of a new state constitution, he willingly left the bench, and before resuming practice spent a year at a law-school in Cincinnati. Having been a Democrat with anti-slavery convictions, he entered into the people's movement in 1854, took an active part in the formation of the Republican party, and was a delegate to the Pittsburg convention the same year, and the candidate of the new party for governor. In a joint canvass with Ashbel P. Willard, the Democratic nominee, he established a reputation for political ability, but was beaten at the polls, and returned to his law practice. In 1860 he was nominated for lieutenant-governor on the ticket with Henry S. Lane, and during the canvass took strong ground in favor of exacting from the southern states obedience to the constitution. Up on convening, the legislature elected Governor Lane U. S. senator, and on 16 January, 1861, Mr. Morton took the oath as governor. He opposed every compromise with the Secessionist party, nominated to the Peace congress men of equally pronounced views, began to prepare for the coming conflict before Fort Sumter was fired upon, and when President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers he offered to send 10,000 from Indiana. The state's quota was raised at once. He reconvened the legislature on 24 April, obtained authority to borrow $2,000,000, and displayed great energy and ability in placing troops in the field and providing for their care and sustenance. He gave permission to citizens of Indiana to raise troops in Kentucky, allowed Kentucky regiments to be recruited from the population of two of the southern counties, procured arms for the volunteer bodies enlisted for the defence of Kentucky, and by thus co-operating with the Unionists in that state did much toward establishing the ascendency of the National government within its borders. When the question of the abolition of slavery arose, the popular majority no longer upheld the governor in his support of the National administration. In 1862 a Democratic legislature was chosen, which refused to receive the governor's message, and was on the point of taking from him the command of the militia, when the Republican members withdrew, leaving both houses without a quorum. In order to carry on the state government and pay the state bonds, he obtained advances from banks and county boards, and appointed a bureau of finance, which, from April, 1863, till January, 1865, made all disbursements of the state, amounting to more than $1,000,000. During this period he refused to summon the legislature. The supreme court condemned this arbitrary course, but the people subsequently applauded his action, and the state assumed the obligations that he incurred. The draft laws provoked the Secessionists in Indiana to form secret organizations and commit outrages on Union men. They plotted against the life of Governor Morton and arranged a general insurrection, to take place in August, 1864. The governor discovered their plans and arrested the leaders of the Knights of the golden circle, or Sons of liberty, as the association was called. In 1864 he was nominated for governor, and defeated Joseph E. McDonald by 20,883 votes, after an animated joint canvass. He resigned in January, 1867, to take his seat in the U. S. senate, to which he was re-elected in 1873. In the senate he was chairman of the committee on privileges and elections and the leader of the Republicans, and for several years he exercised a determining influence over the political course of the party. On the question of reconstruction he supported the severest measures toward the southern states and their citizens. He labored zealously to secure the passage of the 15th amendment to the constitution, was active in the impeachment proceedings against President Johnson, and was the trusted adviser of the Republicans of the south. After supporting the Santo Domingo treaty he was offered the English mission by President Grant, but declined, lest his state should send a Democrat to succeed him in the senate. At the Republican National convention in 1876 Mr. Morton, in the earlier ballots, received next to the highest number of votes for the presidential nomination. He was a member of the electoral commission of 1877. After having a paralytic stroke in 1865 he was never again able to stand without support, yet there was no abatement in his power as a debater or in the effectiveness of his forcible popular oratory. Immediately after his return from Europe, whither he had gone to consult specialists in nervous diseases, he delivered, in 1866, a political speech of which more than 1,000,000 copies were circulated in pamphlet-form. After visiting Oregon in the spring of 1877 as chairman of a senatorial committee to investigate the election of Lafayette Grover, he had another attack of paralysis, and died soon after reaching his home. See “Life and Public Services of Oliver Perry Morton” (Indianapolis, 1876).  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 431-432.


MOSES, Theodore P., New Hampshire, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1844-1845, Vice-President, 1854-1859.


MOTT, Abigale Lydia, Albany, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1840-1841, Vice-President, 1858-1864.  Co-founded Rochester Anti-Slavery Society.  Sister of Lucretia Mott.


MOTT, James, 1778-1868, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, philanthropist, merchant, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist, husband of Lucretia Mott.  Manager and Vice President of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Co-founder, Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society.  Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania.  Association for Advocating the Cause of the Slave.  In 1833 he and Lucrecia both were present at the Philadelphia convention that founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, and James Mott was a member. Both he and his wife were delegates to the world antislavery convention held in London in 1840, and on his return he published his experiences in a little book called Three Months in Great Britain (1841). After the passage of the fugitive-slave law of 1850, the Mott home in Philadelphia became a refuge for runaway negro bondmen.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 118, 140, 154; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 9, 131, 305, 345, 406n13; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 387-388, 464; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 69, 82, 276-278, 287, 294-295, 306, 313, 318-319, 333; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 441; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 288; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 16, p. 19) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 288:

MOTT, JAMES (June 20, 1788-January26, 1868), reformer, abolitionist, was born in North Hempstead, Long Island, New York, the son of Adam and Anne (Mott) Mott, through both of whom he inherited the blood of a seventeenth-century English emigrant, Adam Mott, and of a long 1ine of Quaker ancestors. His father was a farmer and miller. Both parents were worthy people, moderately strict in following the principles of their religion, but they appear to have influenced the intellectual and moral development of their son less than did his mother's father, also named James Mott, a man of unusual intelligence and culture, interested in the advancement of education and in the movements for temperance and abolition. The boy received his education chiefly in the Friends' boarding school at Nine Partners, about fifteen miles from Poughkeepsie, New York, where he was a student for ten years and assistant and teacher for two years. There he met Lucretia Coffin and on April 10, 18n, the two were married. In the spring of 1810 he had gone to Philadelphia, where he became a partner of Lucretia's father in the manufacture and sale of cut nails. When the hard times following the War of 1812 brought reverses he tried various business positions in an effort to make an adequate living for his family but met with little success. About 1822 he went into the commission business in Philadelphia, dealing especially in cotton.

He prospered in this enterprise but eight years later gave it up, for he had reached the decision that it was wrong to have even such an indirect part in slavery, since cotton was produced by slave labor. Though the step meant a serious financial loss at first, he was able to turn to the wool commission business, from which he retired in 1852 with a fair competence. In deciding that indirect participation in slavery was wrong he was influenced - by the teachings of Elias Hicks, the leader of the liberal movement in the Society of Friends, with whose theological views he  also sympathized. After the separation in the Society in 1827 the Motts aligned themselves with the Hicksite group of Friends. During these years of spiritual and moral upheaval they became very active against slavery, at the time defended by many Quakers, and for these activities as well as for the in religious heterodoxy were the objects of bitter attack. In 1833 both were present at the Philadelphia convention that founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, and James Mott was a member. Both he and his wife were delegates to the world antislavery convention held in London in 1840, and on his return he published his experiences in a little book called Three Months in Great Britain (1841). After the passage of the fugitive-slave law of 1850, the Mott home in Philadelphia became a refuge for runaway negro bondmen.

He took an advanced attitude, rare for the period, toward the position of women and early spoke in favor of giving them additional recognition in the Society of Friends. Fully appreciating his wife's superior abilities as a public speaker, he accompanied her on extensive preaching and lecturing tours, thus saving her from the criticism to which, as a woman, she would have been liable at that time. When, under the lead of Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and a few other women, the first woman's rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, he presided over some of the sessions. His ability to express ideas in writing, his sympathy, and his judgment were potent factors in the development of his wife's reputation and usefulness. In 1857 the Motts gave up their large house in Philadelphia and moved to a little farm, called "Roadside," eight miles out of town on the old York road, but he continued his activity in the anti-slavery cause until emancipation was achieved. During the last few years of his life he worked insistently in the interest of better educational facilities for young people of the Society of Friends, and partly as a result of his efforts Swarthmore College was founded in 1864. Four years later, while visiting a daughter in Brooklyn, New York, he died from an attack of pneumonia.

[James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters, ed. by A. D. Hallowell (1884); Three Months in Great Britain, ante; T. C. Cornell, Adam and Anne Mott (1890); New York Tribune, January 27, 1868.]

M.W.W.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 441:

MOTT, James, philanthropist, born in North Hempstead, L. I., 20 June, 1788; died in Brooklyn, New York, 26 January, 1868. At nineteen he became a teacher in a Friends' boarding-school in Dutchess county, New York. He removed to New York city, and in 1810 to Philadelphia, and became a partner of his wife's father in mercantile business, in which he continued more than forty years, retiring with a competency. He was a participant in the movement against slavery and one of the earliest friends of William L. Garrison. In 1833 he aided in organizing in Philadelphia the National anti-slavery society, and in 1840 was a delegate from the Pennsylvania society to attend the World's anti-slavery convention at London, where he was among those who ineffectually urged the admission of the female delegates from the Pennsylvania and other societies. In 1848 he presided over the first Woman's rights national convention, at Seneca Falls, New York. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and in later life aided in maturing the plans of government and instruction for the Friends' college at Swarthmore, near Philadelphia. He published “Three Months in Great Britain.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 441.


MOTT, Lucretia Coffin (Mrs. James Mott), 1793-1880, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Society of Friends, Quaker, radical abolitionist, reformer, suffragist, co-founder and first president of the Philadelphia Female American Anti-Slavery Society, member of the Association of Friends for Advocating the Cause of the Slave, member of the Hicksite Anti-Slavery Association, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wrote memoir, Life, 1884. 

(Bacon, 1999; Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 140, 149, 154, 156, 157, 172, 176; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 3, 13, 31, 68, 77, 94, 186, 188, 189, 201, 204, 224, 225, 226, 241, 289, 314, 326, 350, 374, 378; Palmer, 2001; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 42, 47, 157, 387-388, 416, 464, 519; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 18, 26, 43, 74, 159-162, 175-176, 286-287, 301-302, 327-328; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 441; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 288-290; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 595-597; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 16, p. 21; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, pp. 310-311; Cromwell, Otelia. Lucretia Mott. 1958; Minutes, Convention of the Liberty Party, June 14, 15, 1848, Buffalo, New York) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 288-290:

MOTT, LUCRETIA COFFIN (January 3, 1793- November 11, 1880), reformer and preacher of the Society of Friends, was born on the island of Nantucket, the descendant of Tristram Coffin who emigrated from Devonshire, England, and became one of the original purchasers of the island. She was the second cousin of Isaac and John Coffin [qq.v.]. Her parents were Quakers, as were most of her forebears for some generations. Her mother, Anna Folger, a descendant of Peter Folger [q.v.], was an energetic, capable, conservative woman whose family had stood firmly on the British side during the Revolution. Thomas Coffin, her father, appears to have been of a milder, more democratic bent. During her early childhood he was a ship's captain who voyaged to China, but about 1803 he gave up the sea and took his wife and six children to Boston, where he engaged in business. This journey, when Lucretia was eleven years old, was her first trip to the "continent," as the islanders called the mainland. In Boston she was sent to the public school for a time because her father thought his children ought to acquire democratic sympathies, but at the age of thirteen she entered the Friends' boarding school at Nine Partners near Poughkeepsie, New York. There she spent almost two years in study and two more as assistant and teacher in the girls' section before she returned to her father's home, now removed to Philadelphia. Shortly afterward a fellow pupil and teacher at Nine Partners, James Mott [q.v.], joined her father in business and on April 10, 1811, she was married to him. They had six children, of whom five lived to adult life.

The death of an infant son in 1817 gave her thoughts a decidedly religious turn. The next year she began to speak in meeting and soon showed such marked gifts that she was made an "acknowledged minister" of the Society. But her views were so liberal as, before long, to excite some criticism. She sympathized with Elias Hicks, whose teachings brought about a controversy in the Society of Friends early in the 1820's, and after the separation and reorganization in the Society she, like her husband, aligned herself with the liberal or Hicksite group and remained thereafter a member of it. She became known as one of the most eloquent preachers in Philadelphia and traveled extensively to speak at Quaker meetings in different parts of the country. With William Penn she felt that "men are to be judged by their likeness to Christ, rather than by their notions of Christ" (Hallowell, post, p. 92) and consequently in her religious discourses she emphasized righteousness and ignored technical theology. Many of her sermons and addresses were concerned directly with reform subjects, especially temperance, peace, woman's rights, and antislavery.

Her most notable work was connected with, the question of woman's rights and antislavery. Her interest in woman's wrongs and woman's rights began at Nine Partners school, where, merely because of her sex, she was paid but half as much salary as were the men doing the same work. In the years that followed she occasionally spoke in public on the unjust status of women. Her interest in the subject was further roused by the refusal of the world anti-slavery convention held in London in 1840 officially to recognize herself and a number of other women who were delegates from the United States. One result of this rebuff was the first woman's rights convention,  held on July 19 and 20, 1848, in the Wesleyan Methodist Church at Seneca Falls, New York, at which was formally launched the woman's rights movement in the United States. The chief promoters of the gathering were herself and Elizabeth Cady Stanton [q.v.]. Her greatest interest, however, was the abolition of slavery, to the importance of which Elias Hicks first roused her. When she first began to speak against it, slavery was defended by many Friends, and, consequently, her activities led to persistent but futile efforts to depose her from the ministry and to drop her from the Society. She attended the convention that met in Philadelphia in 1833 and organized the American Anti-Slavery Society. Immediately afterward she helped form the Philadelphia female anti-slavery society, of which she was president during most of its existence. At the anti-slavery gathering of 1840 in London she made her influence felt, in spite of her failure to be recognized as a delegate, and she was referred to as the lioness of the convention. Following the passage of the new fugitive-slave law, she and her husband gave much attention to the protection of runaway bondmen, to whom the Mott home was an asylum.

In 1857 the family moved from Philadelphia to a quiet farm place called "Roadside" near the city, but she kept up her interest in preaching and in various reform movements, especially in activities for improving the condition of the negro. Her last public address was made in May 1880 at the Philadelphia yearly meeting of the Society of Friends. She was sprightly, impulsive, cheerful, and energetic, and, though very fond of approbation, showed firmness and courage in what she believed to be right. In h er busy life she found time to be a good cook, was a careful housekeeper equal to the many emergencies incident to a growing family, and was able to manage a large and hospitable household with a grace to be envied by many women of lesser attainment in the world of affairs.

[James and Lucretia Mott: Life and Letters, ed. by A. D. Hallowell (1884); History of Woman Suffrage, ed. by E. C. Stanton (6 volumes, 1881-1922), esp. sketch in volume I; T. C. Cornell, Adam and Anne Mott (1890); New York Tribune, November 12, 1880.)

M. W. W.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 441:
 
MOTT, Lucretia, reformer, born on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, 3 January, 1793; died near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 11 November, 1880, was descended through her father, Captain Thomas Coffin, from one of the original purchasers of the island. When she was eleven years old her parents removed to Boston, Massachusetts. She was educated in the school where Mr. Mott was teaching, and became a teacher there at the age of fifteen. In 1809 she joined her parents, who had removed to Philadelphia, where she married in 1811. In 1817 she took charge of a small school in Philadelphia, and in 1818 appeared in the ministry of the Friends, and soon became noted for the clearness, refinement, and eloquence of her discourses. In the division of the society, in 1827, she adhered to the Hicksite branch. She early became interested in the movement against slavery, and remained one of its most prominent and persistent advocates until the emancipation. In 1833 she assisted in the formation at Philadelphia of the American anti-slavery society, though, owing to the ideas then accepted as to the activities of women, she did not sign the declaration that was adopted. Later, for a time, she was active in the formation of female anti-slavery organizations. In 1840 she went to London as a delegate from the American anti-slavery society to the World's anti-slavery convention, but it was there decided to admit no women. She was received, however, with cordiality, formed acquaintance with those most active in the movement in Great Britain, and made various addresses. The action of the convention in excluding women excited indignation, and led to the establishment of woman's rights journals in England and France, and to the movement in the United States, in which Mrs. Mott took an active part. She was one of the four women that called the convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, and subsequently devoted part of her efforts to the agitation for improving the legal and political status of women. She held frequent meetings with the colored people, in whose welfare and advancement she felt deep interest, and was for several years president of the Pennsylvania peace society. In the exercise of her “gift” as a minister, she made journeys through New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and into Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana, where she did not refrain from denouncing slavery. She was actively interested in the Free religious associations formed in Boston about 1868, and in the Woman's medical college in Philadelphia. See her “Life,” with that of her husband, edited by her granddaughter, Anna Davis Hallowell (Boston, 1884).  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 441.


MOTT, Richard, 1804-1888, Mamaroneck, New York, abolitionist.  Mayor of Toledo, Ohio.  Anti-slavery Republican U.S. Congressman, 1855-1859.  Brother of James Mott and brother-in-law of Lucretia Mott.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

MUDGE, Benjamin Franklin, 1817-1879, lawyer, geologist, educator abolitionist, temperance and anti-slavery activist.  Protected fugitive slaves.  Mayor of Lynn, Massachusetts. 


MUNRO, Peter Jay, 1767-1833, jurist, abolitionist, member of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, founded 1785. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 461; Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 223, 239n4, 5)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 461:

MUNRO, Peter Jay, jurist, born in Rye, New York, 10 January, 1767; died in Mamaroneck, New York, 23 September, 1833, was educated in New York, under the direction of his uncle, John Jay, until his thirteenth year, when he accompanied the latter to Europe on his appointment by congress to the mission to Spain, landing at Cadiz in November, 1779. Mr. Jay remained in Spain, although not formally received as minister, until 1782, residing at Madrid. During this time Mr. Munro's education was carried on under Spanish masters, and he became thoroughly versed in Spanish and French. In June, 1782, Mr. Jay left Spain with his family and went to Paris. During the peace negotiations, as well as after his trouble with Carmichael and Brockholst Livingston, his official secretaries, Mr. Jay committed many matters to his nephew in a similar capacity. Mr. Munro returned to New York with Mr. Jay on 24 July, 1784. He began at once the study of the law, and after a brief period was placed as a student in the office of Aaron Burr, whom Mr. Jay deemed the best practitioner of the day, and in due time was admitted to the bar. He soon acquired a lucrative practice, and from 1800 till 1826, when his health gave way, was one of the chief lawyers of New York. In 1821, with his cousin, Peter A. Jay, and Jonathan Ward, he was elected from Westchester county, where he had a countryseat, to represent that county in the Constitutional convention of that year. In that body Mr. Munro took an active part, being, by the appointment of its president, Governor Tompkins, chairman of the judiciary committee. In 1826, while he was engaged in active practice, Mr. Munro had an attack of paralysis, and, though he partially recovered and lived for seven years afterward, he spent the residue of his life as a country gentleman. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 461. 


MUNSELL, Luke, Dr., Kentucky, Marion County, Indiana, abolitionist.  Strong supporter of colonization and the American Colonization Society.  American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-1837, 1837-1840. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 139)


MURPHY, William Walton (April 3, 1816-June 8, 1886), United States consul-general, his strong antislavery views impelled him to join the Free-Soil party in 1848. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in May 1854, he supported Isaac P. Christiancy in his efforts to have the Free-Soil party withdraw its state nominations during the coming campaign and call a mass convention of all anti-slavery elements, which resulted in the convention at Jackson, July 6, 1854, the first Republican state convention ever held, at which Murphy was one of the vice-presidents.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 357:

MURPHY, WILLIAM WALTON (April 3, 1816-June 8, 1886), United States consul-general, was born at Ernestown, Canada, but was brought to Ovid, Seneca County, New York, at an early age. As a youth of nineteen he joined the pioneer emigration from New York State to Michigan and entered the United States land office at Monroe as a clerk in 1835, when the speculation in land was at its height. He remained in the land office for two years and studied law in his leisure hours. In 1837 he removed to the pioneer community of Jonesville and with William T. Howell opened the first law office in Hillsdale County, continuing in practice until 1861, the firm from 1848 being that of Murphy & Baxter. In addition to practising law, he conducted a land agency, founded a newspaper, the Jonesville Telegraph, and was a partner in the banking firm of E. O. Grosvenor & Company. He served one term as prosecutor of Hillsdale County and in 1844 was elected representative in the Michigan legislature. For many years he was an ardent Democrat, but his strong antislavery views impelled him to join the Free-Soil party in 1848. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill in May 1854, he supported Isaac P. Christiancy in his efforts to have the Free-Soil party withdraw its state nominations during the coming campaign and call a mass convention of all anti-slavery elements, which resulted in the convention at Jackson, July 6, 1854, the first Republican state convention ever held, at which Murphy was one of the vice-presidents. He was a member of the Michigan delegation which supported Seward at the Republican National Convention held at Chicago in May 1860. In July 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln consul-general for the free city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany.

On his arrival at Frankfort in November 1861, Murphy found that his predecessor, Samuel Ricker, was aiding the Confederate cause, and was remaining in Frankfort with the hope of establishing a consulateship there for the Confederate states. Murphy frustrated this hope by persuading Frankfort's Senate to permit him to place the flag of the United States on the consular premises, thus recognizing him as consul-general for the entire Union rather than for the Northern states alone. When Ricker negotiated with a banking firm to take up a Confederate cotton-loan, Murphy obtained a statement from the head of the banking house of M. A. von Rothschild, which influenced the more conservative houses against participating in the loan. Murphy also had published in the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung and other journals the latest annual reports of the Confederate secretary of the treasury, and Jefferson Davis' defense of repudiation of the bonds of the South. Gaining the friendship of the editor of L 'Europe, he was permitted to use its columns for articles written by himself and his friends in aid of the Union cause. Thus, when the English and French exchanges were closed to the sale of United States bonds issued to prosecute the War they found a ready market in Germany, and large sales were made in Frankfort. Murphy remained consul-general at Frankfort until 1869, after which he settled in Heidelberg as the financial agent of several American railway companies. He died on June 8, 1886. He had married, in 1849, Ellen Beaumont,

[History of Hillsdale County, Michigan (1879); S. D. Bingham, Michigan Biographies (2 volumes, 1924); Historical Collections ... Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, volume XI (1888); H. M. Utley and B. M. Cutcheon, Michigan as a Province, Territory, and State (1906), volume III; 100 Years of the American Consulate General at Frankfort on the Main, I829-I929 (1929); Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White (1905), I, 97-99.]

J. L.R.


MURRAY, Daniel, Maryland, founding charter member of the American Colonization Society in Washington, DC, December 1816. 

(Burin, Eric. Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2005, pp. 35-36; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)


MURRAY, James Ormsbee (November 27, 1827-March 27, 1899), clergyman, first dean of Princeton University.  James Ormsbee Murray, son of James and Aurelia, was eight years old when his father, being opposed to slavery, emancipated some of his slaves, provided for the emancipation of the others.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 359:

MURRAY, JAMES ORMSBEE (November 27, 1827-March 27, 1899), clergyman, first dean of Princeton University, was born at Camden, South Carolina. His grandfather, John Murray, whose parents came from Scotland, was a merchant in Philadelphia. John Murray's wife, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Philip Syng [q.v.], an original member of the American Philosophical Society and friend of Benjamin Franklin. Their son, James Syng Murray, removed to Camden, South Carolina, where he was engaged in business. He married Aurelia Pearce, of English descent, grand-daughter of William Blanding and Lydia Ormsbee, New Englanders. James Ormsbee Murray, son of James and Aurelia, was eight years old when his father, being opposed to slavery, emancipated some of his slaves, provided for the emancipation of the others, and removed with his family to Springfield, Ohio. Here the boy was prepared for college. He entered Brown University with the class of 1848, but was obliged by ill health to drop back two years, graduating as valedictorian in 1850. He spent the next year as instructor in Greek at Brown, then entered Andover Theological Seminary, where he graduated in 1854. From 1854 to 1861 he was pastor of the Congregational church at South Danvers, now Peabody, Massachusetts; from 1861 to 1865 pastor of the Prospect Street church in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts; and then became associate pastor with Dr. Gardiner Spring [q.v.] of the Brick Church (Presbyterian) in New York City. From 1873 to 1875 he was sole pastor of this church. During these years in the ministry he wrote many articles on literary subjects and gained a reputation for his wide acquaintance with English letters. In 1875 he was elected to the Holmes Professorship of Belles Lettres and English Language and Literature in the College of New Jersey (Princeton). His lectures at Princeton dealt principally with writers of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and were of a broad and human, rather than a narrowly scholastic kind. In the latter years of the administration of President James McCosh [q.v.] matters of internal administration fell more and more into Professor Murray's hands, and in 1883 he was appointed dean of the faculty. The office was at first a difficult one, for it included discipline and the enforcement of standards of scholarship; but Dean Murray soon obtained general good will without sacrificing just severity. He had an enthusiastic, impulsive, and affectionate disposition. In his teaching and his administrative methods he formed a link between the men of an older generation whose equipment consisted chiefly of general culture and the later generation of trained specialists. He was retained in the deanship by President Patton and died in office at the dean's house, March 27, 1899. On October 22, 1856, at Brookline, Massachusetts, he had married Julia Richards Haughton, who with four sons and a daughter survived him.

In collaboration with other editors, Murray compiled a hymnbook, The Sacrifice of Praise (1869). He edited Orations and Essays with Selected Parish Sermons by J. L. Diman (1882) and Selections from the Poetical Works of William Cowper (1898); and was the author of George I de Chace: A Memorial (1886), William Gammell: A Biographical Sketch (1890), Francis Wayland (1891).

[John DeWitt, James Ormsbee Murray: a Memorial Sermon, (1899); Princeton Bulletin, May 1899; Historical Catalog Brown University (1905); Daily True American (Trenton), March 28, 1899; communications from Murray's daughter, Mrs. A. C. Armstrong, Middletown, Connecticut; personal acquaintance.]

G. M. H.


MURRAY, John Jr., Society of Friends, Quaker, member of the New York Manumission Society.

(Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 160, 166)


MURRAY, Joseph T., 1834-1907, Massachusetts, abolitionist, inventor.  Worked with James N. Buffam, John Greenleaf Whittier and William Lloyd Garrison.


MURRAY, Orson S., Orwell, Vermont, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1834-1840, 1840-1844.


MURRY, Jane Ann, free African American, co-founder Free African Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1787.

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 156)


MYERS, Amos, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


MYERS, Harriet, died 1865, African American, abolitionist, member of the Underground Railroad in Albany, New York, wife of abolitionist and newspaper publisher Stephen Myers.


MYERS, Leonard, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


MYERS, Stephen, 1800-?, African American, newspaper editor and publisher, abolitionist, freed from slavery in his youth.  Chairman of the Vigilance Committee of Albany, New York, which aided fugitive slaves.  His home was a station on the Underground Railroad.  Worked with leading African American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.  Community leader in Albany, New York.  Publisher of the newspaper, The Elevator.  Also published The Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate.


MYRICK, Luther, Cazenovia, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1841-1842.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.