JONES COUNTY, GA - BIOS Edmond T. Morton Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Carla Miles captbluegrass@mchsi.com Table of Contents page: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/jones.htm Georgia Table of Contents: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm Memoirs of Georgia, Vol. II, Atlanta, Ga., Page 448 Published by The Southern Historical Association in 1895 Edmond T. Morton, planter, Morton’s Station, Jones Co., Ga., son of Oliver H. and Catharine (Harris) Morton, was born in Jones County, Jan. 27, 1830. His great- grandfather, Oliver H. Morton, was a native of Boston, Mass., was a soldier in the revolutionary war, and made a prisoner and carried to England. He escaped from confinement, and during his wanderings afterward traveled nearly all over Ireland. He finally came to North Carolina, where he married a Miss Everett, in Ashe County. He followed the sea about twenty-eight years, and then settled down as a planter. He migrated from North Carolina to Georgia about 1807 and settled in Jones County, between one and two miles from Clinton, the county seat, where he died at the advanced age of ninety-eight years. Mr. Morton’s grandparents passed their lives on this original plantation, and reared quite a large family there. His father was born in 1804 in North Carolina and married Miss Harris, born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, whence her family came about 1812. To them were born the following children: Franklin, deceased; Lavinia, deceased; Thomas, deceased; Edmond, planter, Jones County; William, deceased; Sarah, Mrs. Sydney Bryan, Putnam County; Minerva, Mrs. Pope, of Louisiana; Edmond T., the subject of this sketch; Cynthia, Mrs. Bazemore, Taylor County, Ga.; Mary, Mrs. Cobb, Laurens County, Ga.; and Catharine, Mrs. Wright, Jones County. Mr. Morton had no aspirations for public life, belonged to the old whig party, and felt only the interest in the government of a plain citizen. Himself and wife were members of the Primitive Baptist Church. Mrs. Morton died in 1876, and Mr. Morton in 1891, aged eighty-eight years. Mr. Morton has made farming the business of his life, and has no record to speak of aside from that. He enlisted in 1862 in a cavalry company (Company E), commanded by Capt. Dunlap, of Macon, Ga., as a private, and saw service in South Carolina and Virginia. He came out of the war some $6,000 in debt, but now has three plantations of 1,200, 700 and 428 acres respectively, all model farms in every respect. His home place, 1,200 acres, is said to be one of the choicest farms in Jones County. He runs twenty-seven plows. He has paid the money he owed and bought these farms and the stock on them since the war, and, to use his own expression, he has “dug it all out of the ground.” He is undoubtedly one of the best farmers in the state. There are several brothers, and all of them have very fine plantations, and are known in that section as the “thrifty Mortons.” William, who died a year or two ago, had the finest plantation home in the state. Mr. Morton was married in 1861 to Mrs. Adaline Moore, daughter of Herrington Patterson, Jones County, by whom he has had two children: Edmund P., Morton Station, Ga., and Addie Kate, wife of Homer Johnson, who, with her husband, son of Judge Johnson, of Clinton, makes her home with her parents, who dote on her. She is said to possess a lovable disposition and many charming traits of character, a model daughter and wife, and entirely worthy of all affection bestowed upon her by her parents.