Hillsborough County FlArchives Biographies.....Morrison, William A. 1839 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 June 27, 2010, 11:25 am Source: See below Author: See below William A. Morrison The wonderful growth of Tampa, in comparatively few years, from an unimportant village to its present magnitude as a prosperous city with its great manufacturing, commercial and shipping interests, has afforded exceptional opportunities to men of energy, industry and intelligence in whatever line they may have applied their abilities. Fortunes have been won by those who applied themselves to commerce and to the professions, by those who have engaged in manufacturing and by the promoters of public growth who laid off town lots and attracted purchasers who sought investment or desired to build a home. The pioneers of Tampa, who came before the era of the city's marvelous prosperity and secured large tracts of land for farming purposes, and have been wise enough to hold on to it, have had the satisfaction of seeing their investment grow in value to an extent that the mere relation of the facts seems to do violence to reason and invade the realms of romance. One of the older citizens of Tampa, a man who had already won success in the commercial world before he was attracted by the salubrious climate, who came and bought land in the village days, set out an orange grove, and then again responded to the lure of business life and enjoyed another prosperous career in the commercial world, from which he finally retired to engage in the real estate business and sub-divide and sell early acquired property which has grown in value to an enormous extent is William A. Morrison. Mr. Morrison is of Scotch-Irish descent. His first American ancestors belonged to the clan of Morrisons that lived on Lewis Island off the coast of Scotland, and settled in America about 1700. His parents, who were reared in the East, settled in Illinois in 1832. He was distantly related to the late William R. Morrison, of Illinois, who while a prominent member of Congress, threw a bomb shell into the camp of the protected interests by introducing and seriously advocating a measure which proposed a horizontal reduction of the tariff, which earned for its author the soubriquet of "Horizontal Bill." Mr. Morrison is a native of Alton, Ills., where his parents had located in 1832, and where he was born on the 12th of July, 1839. His parents were John B. and Louisa Piatt Morrison. His father, a ship carpenter by trade, was born on a farm in Mifflin county, Pa., and his mother, who was a native of Troy, N. Y., is still alive at the ripe old age of ninety-two years, and resides with her only daughter in Seattle, Wash. As a boy Mr. Morrison was fun-loving and possessed of an unusually keen sense of humor that has stood him in good stead on many occasions in his long and active career. He was always a lover of outdoor life, his favorite sports being hunting and fishing. In these he still finds rare pleasure and indulges in frequent outings, with a success that would satisfy many younger men. Living in an isolated community, his educational advantages were limited, but he made the most of his opportunities and tells with deep affection of the early days in the little log school house. The first store clothes he had, that were not made of his father's old ones, and a pair of red-top boots were purchased with money he earned peddling peaches from the trees on one of his father's town lots. The money was turned over to his mother, who religiously saved it for a time, only to squander it eventually for store clothes and red-top boots. The family was poor and he being the oldest child of the three, had to go to work before he was fifteen years old to help earn a living. His first place was as cellar clerk in a grocery store, where one of his duties was to shovel New Orleans brown sugar into the farmers bags and fill their jugs with New Orleans molasses. In those days New Orleans sugar was very cheap, coming by river from New Orleans to Alton, and it was literally shoveled, as the smallest purchases were fifty or one hundred pound lots. Alton being on the river was the distributing point for an immense territory extending hundreds of miles north, east and west. There being no railroads, the transportation of the merchandise to the interior of the country was by means of two, four or six-horse or ox teams with huge prairie schooners. Out of the grocery cellar to clerkship in a clothing store was the first upward progress made. He then obtained a position as clerk and bookkeeper in a hardware and agricultural implement store, where he remained some six or seven years, his efforts being exerted to thoroughly acquaint himself with the business in all its details. Here the real foundation of his business success was laid; for it is in the hardware business that he spent most of the years of his long and prosperous commercial career. After mastering the hardware business, he decided to branch out for himself and he and another young man bought out an old stock of hardware in Alton. On account of the active competition with old established houses having plenty of capital behind them this venture did not prove to be a brilliant success. After fully reviewing the situation they decided to change their location and so they removed their entire stock by team to Carrollton, Ills. Here he remained for three years, finally selling out his interest in the hardware business at a profit and removing to Quincy, Ill., where he purchased a one-fourth interest in a large flour mill. He remained in this business eight or ten years and during that time became acquainted with the genial climate of the South, which eventually resulted in his coming to Florida. The firm of which he was a member, decided to start a branch at Mobile, Ala., for the sale of their mill products. This branch or agency, was opened and conducted by Mr. Morrison, and at the end of three years, when it was decided to close the branch house, he returned to his old position in the mill at Quincy. He had an advantageous offer, however, and selling out his one-fourth interest embarked in the pork packing business for about two years. He weathered the panic of 1873 and in fact made some money, but having found pork packing too risky a business, he disposed of his interests and returned to the place of his birth and his start in the business world, Alton, Ills. Here he became a silent partner in the now large hardware and agricultural implement house where he had learned the hardware business. Both he and his family, however, remembered with longing the delightful climate of the South and were always sighing for a change to a more genial clime, which they finally decided to seek. They came to Florida for the winters during 1876-77 and 78 and he finally purchased an unimproved eighty-acre tract of land adjoining what was then the unimportant village of Tampa, where the population at that time was not above 600 people. He at once made arrangements for clearing up the land, and having found the longed for climate it followed as a natural result that he should develop the enthusiasm of the period and so he set out an orange grove of fifteen acres. Returning to Illinois, he packed his family bag and baggage and moved to his Tampa home in November, 1879. On his arrival he began the erection of the first artificial stone house that was built in the state of Florida. It was artificial stone, not concrete. Each stone was moulded separately in wooden moulds and laid in the wall like brick work with mortar joints, not composite. After finishing his residence, his farm and grove being then well in hand, he found too much leisure irksome. His mental and physical energies demanded an outlet and having some surplus capital in hand he yielded to the lure of commercial life and embarked in the general merchandise business in Tampa in 1882 and continued in this for two years. While the business was profitable, he desired something with which he was more experienced and he therefore closed out his general business, selling to a brother of his partner, and having decided to go back to his starting point in the hardware line, he rented the lower floor of the Branch Opera House on Franklin street and in the fall of 1884 opened up with a large stock of hardware and crockery. The business grew rapidly and it was not long before there was a need for more room and in meeting this necessity he purchased a lot sixty by one hundred and five feet on the corner of Franklin and Madison streets and erected thereon the first three-story brick building in Tampa. He fitted up the interior of the building with an especial view to meeting the necessities of his trade, with railroad step-ladders, exchangeable shelves and counters and other up-to-date facilities for conducting business. Upon his removal from the Opera House to the new location he put in as finely selected and complete stock as had ever been shipped south. He remained in active management of a large and very profitable business until 1902 when he sold out and rented the store. He immediately engaged in the real estate business in which he was so successful that he is easily one of the leading real estate dealers in the city. He has conducted many important sales and has placed on the market some of the property which he acquired in the early days, and which has since grown enormously in value. Throughout his business career he has always been a grat believer in the judicious use of printer's ink. He has been a liberal advertiser, using the letters X. Z. as a trade mark to attract attention, printing X. Z. on all his office stationary and even displaying it in large letters on his building and his office windows. Upon being asked the meaning of X. Z. his reply is, "X Zactly. Trade with Morrison and you get a square deal." He still usese X. Z. in advertising his real estate business. His motto is "my word is my bond," and his suggestion to those ambitious to succeed is, "Stick to your knitting work. Don't lie. Don't steal, and be strictly honest in all your transactions." He has never held any political office, saying he has always used his own tub bottom and done his own scratching for a living. In politics he is a Republican, still clinging to early political association?. He is a Master and 32d degree Mason and has risen to prominence in the order, being a member of Hillsborough Lodge, No. 25. He takes much pride in the growth of Tampa, which during his residence, has spread out from a village of six hundred people to a splendid prosperous city of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants. He is hale and hearty at sixty-nine years of age and claims that he is going to live to be one hundred and twenty-five years old, challenging proof to the contrary. Mr. Morrison was married 21st Dec, 1865, in Carrollton, Ills., to Elizabeth H. Hinton, a daughter of Judge Alfred Hinton and Mrs. L. Hinton, of Carrollton, Ills. They have two children, Roy Morrison and Stella LaCroix Taliaferro, wife of T. C. Taliaferro, president of the First National Bank of Tampa. Additional Comments: Extracted from: FLORIDA EDITION MAKERS OF AMERICA AN HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WORK BY AN ABLE CORPS OF WRITERS VOL. II. Published under the patronage of The Florida Historical Society, Jacksonville, Florida ADVISORY BOARD: HON. W. D. BLOXHAM COL. FRANK HARRIS HON. R. W. DAVIS SEN. H. H. MCCREARY HON. F. P. FLEMING W. F. STOVALL C. A. CHOATE, SECRETARY 1909 A. B. CALDWELL ATLANTA, GA. Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/hillsborough/photos/bios/morrison105gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/hillsborough/bios/morrison105gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/flfiles/ File size: 12.1 Kb