ARKANSAS - G. F. MORRIS - Bio

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SOURCE:  Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Eastern 
Arkansas. Chicago:Goodspeed Publishers, 1890.
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G. F. Morris, a descendant of the well-known pioneer settlers of this
county, whose name he bears, was born in 1857, and is the oldest of a
family of three children born to the union of C. F. and Mississippi H.
(Fogleman) Morris. His maternal grandfather, G. S. Fogleman, came to
this county in a keel-boat from Ohio, about 1824, when land that is now
worth from $6 to $8 per acre could have been purchased for ten cents.
After locating here he followed the occupation of a wood chopper, and,
not being able to buy a team, he and his wife carried the wood on their
backs to the boat landing. After laboring in this manner for some time
he bought a team, and from such an humble start was enabled before long
to hire hands and contract on a larger scale, and he finally commenced
buying negroes, at the time of his death owning sixty-five negro men
besides a number of women and children. He was also the owner of
twenty-one miles front on the Mississippi River, consisting of over
20,000 acres. He died in 1865 and his wife in 1857 or 1858. C. F. Morris
and wife were married in 1856, at Fogleman's Landing, on board the
steamer Kate Frisbey. Mr. Morris, at that time, was a steamboat man at
Memphis, Tenn. His father, W. B. Morris, and grandfather were among the
early settlers of Sumner County, Tenn., and were manufacturers of paper.
W. B. Morris moved to Memphis when it was a village of only a few
hundred inhabitants, and engaged in the mercantile business, remaining
there till his death. His son, C. F. Morris, was the first steamboat
agent at Memphis, and was clerk on the first boat built at that place,
which was run in the Memphis and White River trade. Mr. Morris followed
steamboating for twenty years, discontinuing it just before the
commencement of the late civil strife. After the war he engaged in
farming, his wife having inherited about 17,000 acres of land. He also
followed the wood business till the boats began to burn coal. Mr. and
Mrs. Morris were the parents of four children of whom two are still
living; they are: G. F., Calvin M. (deceased), Cynthia (deceased),
Lazinka E. (wife of A. M. Morrow). G. F. Morris was reared in this
county and received his education in Memphis, being married, in 1880, to
Miss Mary Speck, daughter of Lawrence Speck. Mr. and Mrs. Morris have a
family of two children: Oliver W. and Frank K. When the former reached
the age of fourteen years be embarked in life for himself in the wood
business, which he followed till 1880, then starting as a farmer. This
he continued for only a short time and soon secured a position on the
Phil. Allen, serving many years as pilot on this boat and the G. W.
Cheek. Since leaving the river he has been occupied in the mercantile
and saloon business.