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Page 6 of 650

Descendants of Andrew Morris

Generation No. 3

3. RICHARD³ MORRIS (ROBERT SR.², ANDREW¹) was born 1720 in Parish of Gyffyn, Wales, and died July 11, 1787 in Gyffyn. He married ESTHER CHATER WFT Est. 1739-1768. She was born 1726, and died April 1, 1802.

Children of RICHARD MORRIS and ESTHER CHATER are:

	i.	MARGARET⁴ MORRIS, b. WFT Est. 1742-1768; d. WFT Est. 1758-1851; m. ? REYNOLDS, WFT Est. 1758-1802; b. WFT Est. 1732-1767; d. WFT Est. 1758-1846.
7.	ii.	ELLINOR MORRIS, b. 1754; d. January 27, 1832, Beaumaris, England.
8.	iii.	JOHN MORRIS, b. WFT Est. 1741-1768; d. 1789, Warrington, Lancashire.
	iv.	HUGH MORRIS, b. WFT Est. 1742-1768; d. WFT Est. 1748-1848.
9.	v.	JANE MORRIS, b. WFT Est. 1742-1768; d. WFT Est. 1764-1851.

4. JOSEPH³ MORRIS (ROBERT SR.², ANDREW¹) was born Abt. 1730 in England, and died 1788 in Big Whiteley Creek, Greene County Pennsylvania. He married HANNAH LEE ASSON Abt. 1743. She was born 1723 in Monmouth, New Jersey, and died October 2, 1783 in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

Notes for JOSEPH MORRIS:
Joseph moved to Apple Pie Ridge, Berkley County, Pennsylvania before 1758. About 1763 he moved again to Greene County, Pennsylvania. Information on Joseph and kids and grandkids from 1790 census Greene Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania which later became Greene County.

More About HANNAH LEE ASSON:
Burial: Garards Fort Cemetary, Greene County, Pennsylvania

Children of JOSEPH MORRIS and HANNAH ASSON are:

GEORGE CAPT.⁴ MORRIS, b. January 2, 1743/44, New Jersey; d. January 20, 1842, Greene County, Pennsylvania; m. MARGARET CORBLY, Abt. 1778; b. February 17, 1758, Near Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia; d. October 5, 1833.

More About GEORGE CAPT. MORRIS:
Burial: Garards Fort Cemetary

More About MARGARET CORBLY:
Burial: Garards Fort Cemetary

	ii.	JOSEPH MORRIS, b. Abt. 1746, Virginia; m. ELIZABETH JOHNSON, Abt. 1766; b. Abt. 1746, Virginia.
	iii.	LEVI MORRIS, b. Abt. 1748, Virginia.
	iv.	IASIAH MORRIS, b. Abt. 1750.
10.	v.	JONATHAN JAMES MORRIS, b. June 15, 1753, Apple Pie Ridge, Berkley County, West Virginia; d. March 20, 1841, Greene County, Pennsylvania.
11.	vi.	AMOS ANTHONY MORRIS, b. August 25, 1758, Apple Pie Ridge, Berkley County, West Virginia; d. 1847, Monongalia County, Virginia now West Virginia.

5. MARGARET³ MORRIS (ROBERT SR.², ANDREW¹) was born October 1, 1732 in Liverpool, England, and died 1799 in Lincolnton, North Carolina. She married JOHN COX October 29, 1749 in New Jersey, son of JAMES COX and REBECCA STILLWELL. He was born November 1, 1727 in Monmouth, New Jersey, and died 1804 in Lincolnton, North Carolina.

Children of MARGARET MORRIS and JOHN COX are:

	i.		MORRIS⁴ COX, b. September 26, 1751; d. April 22, 1804, Lincolnton, North Carolina; m. CATHERINE HUTCHINSON, June 21, 1773; b. February 11, 1754; d. July 14, 1796, Lincolnton, North Carolina.
	ii.		REBECCA COX, b. March 22, 1755; m. ABSALOM BONHAM, April 8, 1785.
	iii.		AARON COX, b. October 2, 1757; m. OLLY BAKER, April 1, 1787, North Carolina.
	iv.		MARY COX, b. October 14, 1761, Middletown, Monmouth County, New Jersey; d. December 5, 1847, Lincolnton, North Carolina; m. JAMES SULLIVAN, September 1, 1777, Hyattstown, Middlesex County, New Jersey; b. 1754, New Jersey; d. August 27, 1825, Lincolnton, North Carolina.

Notes for JAMES SULLIVAN:
James Sullivan moved from Hyattstown, New Jersey to Lincoln County about mid 1780's. He settled on a tract of land along Mill Creek, on land deeded in 1784 to his wife Mary (nee Cox), by Thomas Salter, Mary's step-uncle (Deed abstract, July Court 1784, p. 113, Tryon & Rutherfird County, 975.6782 D NCC, pp 678-679). It is likely that James and Mary joined Mary's father, John Cox, in North Carolina.(John Cox was granted land in North Carolina in 1782 for patriotic service during the Revolutionary War - North Carolina Revolutionary War Accounts, Vol. XII, p.50, folio 2). Thomas Salter's will, proved in 1790, left his "wearing apparel" to his step-brother, John Cox, "now living in North Carolina" (Stilwell's Historical Miscellany on N.Y. & N.J., Vol 4, p.209-211).

James Sullivan was drafted in the American Revolution and served in Nixon's Company of Horse in New Jersey. His service was in or around Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He enlisted again in 1781 and servered as a Corporal with Walton's Company of Dragoons until May 25, 1782 in or around Trenton, New Jersey (Widow's pension records: affidavits of Mary Cox, Abner Hull, and Nancy Moore; National Archives M881, roll 786 and M804, roll 2321; Adjutant General's Office, War Department, Washington, D.C. & DAR Patriotic Index.)

The 1790 census of Morgan District, Lincoln County, North Carolina lists James Sullivan as "head od household with 5 free white males under 16 years of age and 2 free white females 16 years of afe and upward."

The 1820 census of Lincoln County West of the South Fork River, stamped page 294, lists "James Sullivan, head of household; males 16-26, one (1); 45 or over, one (1); females 10-16, one (1); 16-26, one, (1).

According to James Sullivan's tombstone, located in the Cox-Sullivan graveyard on the old Sullivan homeplace, now (1992) part of the Craig and Delores Wood estate, Lincolnton, North Carolina, he died August 27, 1825 in his 71st year.

	v.		PAUL COX, b. July 1763.
	vi.		RACHEL COX, b. September 19, 1765; m. PETER CARSON, July 5, 1786, North Carolina.
	vii.		NANCY COX, b. August 19, 1767; m. MOSES MOORE, July 29, 1785, North Carolina.

Notes for MOSES MOORE:
*Pitt County Deed Book R, p.295
March 10, 1807
Grantors: Moses Moore
Heirs:
Jacob Mmore
James Newmans
William Boyde
Henry Moore
Alsee Moore
Elizabeth Moore
Chloe Moore
Lidia Moore
David Moore
Sarah Newmans
Catey Boyde
Grantee: Moses Moore Jr.
___A; $600.

	viii.		ELIZABETH COX, b. February 16, 1769; m. MR. FERGUSON.
	ix.		ELISHA COX, b. October 6, 1771; d. 1824; m. MARGARET HOLLAND, December 14, 1793, Lincolnton, North Carolina; b. January 28, 1774, Lincolnton, North Carolina; d. January 31, 1825, Gastonia, North Carolina.
	x.		SUSANNAH COX, b. March 24, 1773; m. MR. CARPENTER.
	xi.		ELIJAH COX, b. January 17, 1775; m. JANE HUGGINS, August 12, 1796.

6. ROBERT JR.³ MORRIS (ROBERT SR.², ANDREW¹)¹ was born January 31, 1733/34 in Liverpool, England, and died May 8, 1806 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He married (1) MARY WHITE¹. He married (2) MARY WHITE A.K.A MOLLY March 2, 1769 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, daughter of THOMAS WHITE and ESTHER HAWLINGS. She was born April 13, 1749 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and died January 16, 1827 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Notes for ROBERT JR. MORRIS:
Most of this information is directly from the book "Robert Morris Audacious Patriot" by Frederick Wagner. Published by Dodd, Mead & Company, New York Copyright 1976

Robert was an American financier, born in Liverpool, England. He came to America in 1747 at the age of 13. "In 1748 Robert journeyed from Oxford to Philadelphia, where he was to live in the home of Robert Greenway, a merchant who was a friend of the senior Morris. Greenway arranged for young Bob to be tutored but the boy detested schoolwork, and soon was apprenticed to the merchant Charles Willing." Robert seemed to be a natural born businessman and an eager speculator.

***In 1754 he was taken into partnership with Thomas Willing, and the firm, Willing and Morris, was prominent in Philadelphia for almost forty years. It was so extensive and lucrative that both men became wealthy long before the Revolution. Using their own vessels, they traded with Europe and the West Indied. Morris sometimes made voyages with his ship captains, and it is told that on one trip he was taken prisoner by the French. Put ashore in France without a shilling, he was in a precarious position, but by ingeniously mending a Frenchmen's watch, he earned a small sum and made his way to a port and a ship for America.

In Novemebr 1775 Morris, the active partner of the leading importing house in Philadelphia, was elected to the Second Continental Congress. Soon after taking his seat, Morris was added - as chairman - to the Secret Committee, recently set up to contract for the importation of arms, ammunition, and gunpowder. Later he was appointed to the committee to devise ways and means for furnishing the Colonies with a naval armament. He also served as vice-president of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety.

In another way, Mr. Morris contributed to advance the patriotic cause. During the whole war, he maintained an extensive private correspondence with gentlemen in England, by means of which he often received information of importance to this country. "These letters he read to a few select mercantile friends, who regularly met in the insurance room at the merchant's coffee house, and through them the intelligence they contained was diffused among the citizens, and thus kept alive the spirit of opposition, made them acquainted with the gradual progress of hostile movements, and convinced them how little was to be expected from the government in respect to the alleviation of the oppression and hardships against which the colonies had for a long time most humbly, earnestly, and eloquently remonstrated. This practice, which began previous to the suspension of the intercourse between the two countries, he continued during the war; and through the route of the continent, especially France and Holland, he received for a while the despatches, which had formerly come directly from England."

Morris is said to have helped with the design of the American Flag. According to the story told by a grandson of Betsy Ross before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in 1870, General Washington, George Ross and Robert Morris called upon Betsy Griscom Ross, who had married John Ross, nephew of George, in her little upholstery shop in Arch Street, Philadelphia, one day in 1777. They asked if she could make a flag, showing her a tentative design. Her suggestion for using the five pointed stars was well received and soon afterward she completed her first flag - The Star Spangled Banner - with a circle of thirteen white stars against a blue square set in the upper left corner of a field of red and white stripes. These stripes would be thirteen in number too, thus honoring the original Colonies which had joined in the Declaration of Independence. The design was approved by Congress on June 14, which is now celebrated as Flag Day. ("Famous Signers of the Declaration" by Dorothy Horton McGee; publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company, New York: 1963, pages 154-159)***

Morris became politically active in the period before the American Revolution. As a member of the Continental Congress from 1776 to 1778, he signed the Declaration of Independence. From 1781 to 1784 Morris supervised the finances of the war, a task he fulfilled largely on the basis of his personal credit. In 1781 he established, in Philadelphia, the Bank of North America, the oldest financial institution in the United States. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and served (1789-95) in the U.S. Senate. All of these accomplishments did not, however, keep him from spending 3 years in debtors prison towards the end of his life. He died five years after his release from debtors prison, broken in spirit and fortune. He was buried in the yard of Christ Church.

William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, recorded the following observation about Morris during the Constitutional Convention: "He has an understanding equal to any public object and possesses an energy of mind that few men can boast of. Although he is not learned, yet he is as great as those who are." On September 18, 1787 thirty nine of the forty two delegates present signed the final draft of the Constitution. As Robert Morris place his signature on the parchment, he became one of two men - Roger Sherman was the other - to have signed three major documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of the Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States.

When Robert Morris resigned as Superintendent of Finance in 1784, his relentless enemy Arthur Lee was one of a three-man committee appointmed to supervise the affairs of the treasury. Lee furnished information to those hostile to Morris and the Federation that Morris supported, men who used fragmentary information as the basis for venomous attacks starting late in 1787.

In the press, one of the leading attackers of Morris was a clever, vitriolic writer who signed himself "Centinel." Describing Morris as "a public defaulter" and "a man without principles," "Centinel" charged that he never had settled his accounts with the government. Morris realized that his friendship with Washington and visits to Mount Vernon were public knowledge; he feared that "Centinel's" attacks on him were intended largely to discredit the Federalist cause in Virginia. As a result, Morris, violating his own rule against debating in the public press, dispatched a letter from Richmond to Philadelphia's Independent Gazetteer, where it was published on April 8, 1788.

In the letter Morris stated that in the early days of the Revolution he had been authorized to import and export and to deposit American funds in Europe. "To effect these objects I received considerable sums of money," Morris said; "the business has been performed, but the accounts are not yet settled." The settlement had been delayed because Morris had not yet been able to ovtain receipts for some deliveries and duplicates of accounts lost at sea during the war, but he had not rushed because he believed the balance to show him as the government's creditor rather than its debtor. As for his transactions as Supertindent of Finance, he said that no accounts required settlement. "As I never received any of the public money none of it can be in my hands," he asserted. All money was received by or paid from the public treasury on Morris's warrents. "The party to whom it was paid was accountable; and the accounts were all in the treasury office, open (during my administration) to the inspection of every American citizen." Morris claimed that only "the propriety of the issue to others by my authority" was his responsibility; all government receipts had regularly been published in the papers, and all his transactions had been under the surveillance of Congress.

In 1790 Morris bought a million acres in western New York; by the following year he had sold most of this tract at a profit of nearly $60,000 through his agent in London. In 1791 he bought an additional four million acres and then sold all but a half million to the Holland Company, a firm of Dutch capitalists. In 1794, with John Nicholson of Philadelphia, once the Comptroller-General of Pennsylvania, he purchased a million acres along the Susquehanna River, wher he built the town of Asylum; in 1795 he sold his share to Nicholson. In 1795, with Nicholson and the rascally James Greenleaf of New York, once the American consul at Amsterdam, he formed the North American Land Company, which soon owned more than six million acres in Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, and Georgia.

The Federal City on the Potomac River had been laid out in 1792; in 1793 and 1794 Morris, Nicholson, and Greenleaf bought more than seven thousand building lots there, on which they agreed to erect annually twenty brick houses, two stories high and each covering twelve hundred square feet.

Frenetically Morris tried to promote schemes to develop the wild lands he had purchased; he used all his considerable skill to persuade settlers to emigrate to his wilderness. But the prospective settlers were reluctant, surveys were expensive, and negotiations with the Indians over disputed claims did not progress as smoothly as he had anticipated.

Morris's affairs had reached such a state that President Washington was forced to rebuke him. In July, 1795, he wrote to Secretary of State Edmund Randolph that he should tell Morris and Nicholson "in earnest and strong terms" that serious consequences would result to the public building in the Federal City "if the deficiency, or part thereof, due on their contract, is not paid." And in September, Washington wrote directly to Morris; his motives, he said, sprang "as much from private friendship, as they do from a sense of public duty." Urging Morris to pay what was due on his contracts, Washington pointed out that many valuable men would be thrown out of work if Morris failed to meet his obligations.

As treasurer for a bankrupt nation he had audaciously resorted to devices which kept the money machine going; when hard money was lacking, he staved off national disaster by pledging his personal credit, by using his personal notes as currency, by snaring loans when no more loans seemed possible. He grew proud; infatuated with his success, he bagan to see himself capable of anything, so powerful that he was indestructible. Now, as a private citizen, he had resorted to similar free-wheeling maneuvers. But he was beginning to discover that fighting to save a private empire was different from fighting to save a new nation. The power, the indestructibility, had belonged to the nation he represented, not the individual he was.

Morris desperately tried to satisfy his creditors, "hungry as the devil." Philadelphia was experiencing a financial panic; 150 businesses failed, and more than sixty merchants were jailed for debt. Affairs had grown so bad that by the summer of 1797, Morris and Nicholson, taking refuge at "The Hills," turned it into a fortress, which Robert nicknamed "Castle Defiance." Nicholson left to return to his family; Morris's letters to him reveal the agony of the besieged man. "There is a Frenchman intends to shoot me at the window if I do not pay a note he protested on Saturday," Morris wrote. Another time he confessed, "I believe I shall go mad. Every day brings forward scenes and troubles almost unsupportable, and they seem to be accumulating so that at last they will like a torrent carry everything before them. God help us, for men will not."

By February 15, Morris's fate was determined. Morris informed Nicholson, "I am in the custody of a sheriff's officer in my own house." On the following day the once great merchant and financier was conveyed to the Prune Street jail, where debtors were incarcerated. Morris tried to be cheerful when writing to his family. To Tom he said, "My health is good, my spirits not broke, my mind sound and vigorous, and therefore I will do all I can consistently with principles of integrity to make the best of my affairs and extricate myself as well as I can."

Robert wrote a letter to Adam Hoops, the founder of Olean, an excerpt of which tells its own tale. He explained that he and his son "are meditating on the manner to be pursued and on a view of all existing circumstances. Formerly, my path was strewed with flowers, but these are withered and thorns are substituted. However, I must make my march through the rest of my life, as well as I can, and in all situations. I am, dear Sir, your friend and servent - Robert Morris."

Morris's friends did what they could. George Washington dined with him in the dingy room, cluttered with borrowed furniture. Even while Morris lay in prison, his talents were not forgotten. President Thomas Jefferson, when forming his cabinet in March, 1801, wrote to his Secretary of State, James Madison, that if Morris "could get from confinement, and the public give him confidence, he would be a most valuable officer in that station [Secretary of the Navy] and in our council."

Although Morris's progress was scarcely one from rags to riches, his beginnings were modest and his schooling was haphazard. Through ceaseless hard work, intelligence, shrewdness, and ingenuity, he rose to be Prince of Merchants, a pioneer in the trade with China, and eventually - although briefly - to be one of the wealthiest men in America. He was in fact, one of the first of an American type: the modern businessman.

More About ROBERT JR. MORRIS:
Christening: January 28, 1733/34, St. George's Church, Castle Street, Liverpool, England

Notes for MARY WHITE A.K.A MOLLY:
Mary White was the daughter of Thomas White, who came to this country from London in early life and settled on the eastern shore of Maryland. After the death of White's first wife he removed to Philadelphia, and married a widow named Newman, who resided in Burlington, New Jersey. By her he had a son and a daughter. The former was named William, and became the second bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States. Mary, the elder of the two children, married Robert Morris, 2 May, 1769, when she was little over twenty years of age. She has been described as "elegant, accomplished, and rich, and well qualified to carry the felicity of connubial life, to its highest perfection." Not only did she preside gracefully over her husband's luxurious home during his days of prosperity, but, when misfortune had overtaken him, she showed herself a true wife.

Less than three weeks after George Washington was inaugurated President, Martha Washington, accompanied by her grandchildren, made the journey from Mount Vernon to New York City to join the President. When she reached Gray's Ferry, just outside Philadelphia, she was meat by Mary Morris, other leading citizens, and a troop of soldiers, to be escorted to the Morris home on Market Street, where she rested - in between entertainments - for the weekend. The following Monday the trip was resumed, with Mrs. Morris and Maria as guests in her carriage. On Wednesday, the two husbands, one a President and the other a Senator, met their wives at Elizabethtown, where they all boarded the President's barge for the trip to Manhattan.

Toward the end of May, Martha Washington gave her first reception. Here Mary Morris occupied the place of honor on her right, as she would continue to do at future receptions held by the President's wife. Robert was accorded the same honor by Washington at public and private dinners, preferential treatment that increased the enmity of his opponents.

Through certain interests in the Holland land company, bequeathed to Mary by Gouverneur Morris, (no relation to Robert & Mary) she obtained from that corporation a life annuity of $2,000 before she would sign certain papers to which her signature was indispensable. Robert Morris was confined in the Prune Street prison, Philadelphia, from February, 1798, until liberated by the passage of the national bankrupt law in 1802. During her husband's imprisonment Mrs. Morris received an autograph letter signed by both President and Martha Washington, addressed to her while residing temporarily at Winchester, Virginia, urging her to pay them a visit at Mount Vernon, and to make as long a stay under "our roof as you shall find convenient; for be assured we ever have, and still do retain, the most affectionate regard for you, Mr. Morris, and the family." Mrs. Morris continued to reside in Philadelphia, and on her husband's release he found shelter in the home that her decision and forethought had secured for him.

Children of ROBERT MORRIS and MARY MOLLY are:

12.	i.	ROBERT CLARK⁴ MORRIS, b. December 19, 1769, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. 1804, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
13.	ii.	THOMAS MORRIS, b. February 26, 1771, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. March 12, 1854, New York.
	iii.	WILLIAM WHITE MORRIS, b. August 9, 1772, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. October 9, 1798; m. SARAH CROOKS, 1792.

Notes for WILLIAM WHITE MORRIS:
William was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. Sent to France in 1794 at the age of twenty-one, he let his family know where he was and what he was doing only through his drafts for money; although Morris called him home to supervise the holdings in the Federal City, William refused to leave Europe. Early in 1796 the distraught father wrote, "I will do anything for him except furnish him money, and will do that if I must."

14.	iv.	HETTY MORRIS, b. July 30, 1774, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. April 18, 1817, Kentucky.
15.	v.	CHARLES MORRIS, b. July 11, 1777, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. 1802 - 1805, At sea near South America.
16.	vi.	MARIA MORRIS, b. April 24, 1779, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. September 11, 1852, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
17.	vii.	HENRY MORRIS, b. July 24, 1784, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. December 1, 1842.