Cabarrus County, NC - Robert Hall Morrison

Robert Hall Morrison 
1798 - 1889
 
Robert Hall Morrison, son of William Morrison (d. 1821), was born in 
1798 in the Rocky River community near Concord, Mecklenburg (now 
Cabarrus) County, N.C. He attended the University of North Carolina, 
graduating in 1818, and studied theology at Princeton. He entered the 
ministry of the Presbyterian Church and was pastor to congregations in 
Mecklenburg and Cabarrus counties, and, later, in Fayetteville, N.C., 
until he became the first president of Davidson College, Mecklenburg 
County, in 1837. He resigned from the college in 1840 due to ill health 
and retired to his Cottage Home Plantation in Lincoln County, North 
Carolina. He continued to preach in that county at the Machpelah 
Presbyterian Church until his death in 1889. 
 
Robert Hall Morrison married Mary Graham (1801-1864), daughter of 
General Joseph Graham of Lincoln County. They had ten children who 
lived to adulthood. Their sons were William W., who worked for his 
uncle Senator William Alexander Graham in the U.S. Department of the 
Navy; Joseph Graham, who served on General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's 
staff during the Civil War; Robert Hall; and Alfred James. Several of 
their daughters were married to prominent leaders of the Confederacy: 
Isabella to General Daniel Harvey Hill, Mary Anna (1831-1915) to 
General Thomas Jonathan ("Stonewall") Jackson; Eugenia to General Rufus 
Clay Barringer; Susan Washington to Major Alphonso Calhoun Avery; 
Harriet to James Patton Irwin; and Laura to Colonel John E. Brown. 
 
Robert Hall Morrison's elder brother, James McEwen Morrison, left North 
Carolina in 1816 for Dallas County, Ala., where he served as sheriff. 
In 1835, he and his family moved to Water Valley, Miss. James McEwen 
Morrison's son, Hugh McEwen Morrison, served as chaplain in the 19th 
Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, Army of Northern Virginia, during the 
Civil War. Robert Hall Morrison's sister Sally married Andrew Walker of 
Concord, Cabarrus County, N.C. 
 
The Reverend James Morrison (1795-1870), son of John Morrison,was a 
third cousin of Robert Hall Morrison. He was born in the Rocky River 
community and, following graduation from the University of North 
Carolina in 1814, moved to Rockbridge County, Va., where he served as 
minister to the New Providence Presbyterian Church until his death. 
First cousins to James Morrison and third cousins to Robert Hall 
Morrison were the Reverend James Elijah Morrison (b. 1805) and the 
Reverend Elam Johnston Morrison (1800-1825), both Presbyterian 
ministers in North Carolina and Virginia.

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