COLUMBIA COUNTY OHIO - MORRIS/MILLER History Chapter 2 (published 1873)
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"HISTORY OF THE MORRIS AND MILLER FAMILIES" By Morris Miller  1873
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                	Chapter 2
	   Early Account of the Morris Family

	The history of the Morris family is to me a little more 
obscure as to the time of their advent to America. 
Tradition says that they and the West family came from 
Wales to Pennsylvania at an early day. We find them first 
in Chester County. Jonathan Morris married Mary West, the 
daughter of      West, she being the elder sister of the 
London painter, Benjamin West, so widely known in history. 
Their eldest daughter, Sarah by name, was the subject of 
the young limner’s first effort at portrait painting, and 
is thus related:  The mother of little Sarah having come to 
her father’s on a visit, at a suitable time in the day the 
two mothers concluded to take a walk into the garden, 
leaving the babe in the cradle with the young Benjamin to 
watch it and rock the cradle if needed. The child reposed 
quietly, and the lad Benjamin got his little fixtures for 
drawing, and when the mother returned he had the portrait 
of the child so completely taken that it was the great 
admiration of the all who beheld it, and stamped on him the 
character of a natural artist.

	So far as I have been able to learn, the children of 
Jonathan and Mary Morris were: Sarah, Isaac, David, 
Jonathan, Jesse and Mary. Sarah married a man by the name 
of Thomas Hattan. They settled in Virginia and resided 
there. The other four eventually emigrated to Washington 
County, Pa., at what respective dates I can not ascertain. 
Isaac married a woman named Hannah Perkins. Tradition says 
that Isaac in his boyish days was a little singular. His 
parents being in limited circumstances, he refused to go to 
school, saying that he felt it was his duty to help his 
parents, and consequently, he never learned to read or 
write. After marriage they resided a few years near 
Fredericksburg, Maryland. About the year 1780 they 
emigrated to Washington County, Pa., on pack horses, and 
settled about 11 miles southwest of the town of Washington 
on the head of Buffalo Creek. Here they resided for several 
years, during which time they buried three children. Two of 
them were twins and deceased in infancy. The other, I 
believe, was a son of a few years of age that I can not 
place among the others. The six children remaining were 
named as follows: Deborah, Sarah, Mary, Jonathan, David and 
Phebe.

	From this era I am much at loss for correct information 
for a few years, as neither of these six children are now 
living, and as I can find no record to assist me, but from 
best tradition, the father sold his possession on Buffalo 
Creek and purchased a tract of land on the Monongalia River 
about 20 miles east of Washington and seven miles up the 
river from Brownsville, it being in the settlement of the 
Society of Friends, they having established a meeting there 
some years before, calling it Westland Meeting, it being 
the farthest west of any of the meetings of their Society. 
Near this meeting resided a family by the name of Lewis, 
belonging to the Society, and it so turned out that Isaac 
Morris made suit to one of the girls, Elizabeth by name, to 
become his wife. Having settled the matter between 
themselves, Isaac deemed it prudent to ask her parents’ 
consent, his mother having been raised a Friend, and he 
(though not a professor) always had a high regard for the 
Society and the order. He accordingly laid the subject of 
their intentions before the parents. The father, whose name 
was Samuel, thus replies, “Why, Isaac, if thee marries her 
out of the Society they will disown her.”

	“Oh,” replied Isaac, “I never knew an instance of 
that kind where they bettered themselves in marriage.”

	They got married, and she made up with her Friends for 
the deviation of marrying against rules and retained her 
right of membership and lived a very consistent member. Her 
husband dressed plain always and used very plain language, 
and kept a free and open house to all her Friends, the same 
as their numerous relations. In process of time to them 
were born nine children—five sons and four daughters, 
namely: Samuel, Isaac, Hannah, Lewis, Mordecai, Rebecca, 
Oliver, Elizabeth. The youngest died in infancy.

	Although the father of those 14 living children had 
rather refused or omitted getting a school education 
himself, he was not unmindful of his children in that 
respect, but he endeavored to give them as good an 
opportunity as was afforded in the common schools of those 
days. As soon as the older ones could read reasonably well, 
he took an interest in a small library a few miles off so 
that all leisure hours and long evenings were generally 
devoted to someone reading for his benefit, being gifted 
with a quick, perceptive mind and a good memory, so that 
the saying frequently was that he and his family were 
better informed of the world’s doings and its former 
history than many having the advantage of an ordinary 
education in their youthful days. This little item of Isaac 
asking his father’s consent to his marriage I have verbatim 
from my grandfather a few months before his death.
	
	We will at present leave Isaac and his family on the 
farm and look a little after the other three youngest 
brothers, the sister and mother. We have no tradition to 
tell us when or where Jonathan Morris deceased or when 
those four children with their widowed mother came west to 
Washington County. I can only say of them what I know 
personally. As early as my memory serves me, David Morris 
was keeping a hotel in Washington. His house was for many 
years the principal hotel of the place. He was well 
qualified for the business and much regretted by the public 
when age admonished him to leave it.

	His children, I believe, were five in number, three 
sons and two daughters. The sons’ names were Benjamin, 
David and William; the daughters were Louisa and Eliza. His 
family belonged to the Presbyterian Church and always 
deported themselves very worthy members, although they kept 
a hotel and probably liquor in it, yet the latter was kept 
so completely under control that it was never allowed to 
mar their characters or shade their business. The sons were 
educated for professional men. Benjamin, the oldest, 
studied medicine, and, after a lapse of years, married a 
widow woman, who, with her former husband, had settled in 
New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County, Ohio. She was the 
daughter of Adam Jacobs, a successful merchant in 
Brownsville in the early time with whom the Morris family 
were well acquainted. As the property of her former husband 
remained unsold in Ohio, they concluded to occupy it, and I 
believe in 1827 Benjamin and his wife moved to it. The 
property had been damaged by fire about the time of her 
former husband’s death. The refitted it up, designing it 
for a hotel, as the Ohio Canal was then being constructed, 
it was thought to be a favorable locality for the hotel 
business. In 1828 I was called on by Cousin Benjamin to put 
in a pump for him at his hotel. It so happened at the time 
that his aged mother-in-law was abiding with them for a 
season. My mother had been intimately acquainted with her 
in younger days; their store in Brownsville, was the place 
where mother then dealt; I always had to go along and 
assist her.

	Everything looked prosperous there for a few years 
while the canal was in progress. After it was finished the 
place did not improve as was anticipated. They grew 
dissatisfied and went to Columbiana County, where they 
resided for a time, and I believe finally settled in 
Pittsburgh.

	As my business away from home after the spring of 1832 
absorbed my attention from what was transpiring among my 
relations much more than in former years, I have but few to 
appeal to now for information. David, the second son, was 
intended in his education for a lawyer, but he failed to 
rise to distinction, and when I saw him last he was abiding 
with his cousins in the vicinity of Brownsville. He 
appeared to be devoid of energy in everything he had 
undertaken. This was the last time I have seen or heard of 
him, which was 1841.

	William, the third son, after his father’s death, went 
south, married in the family of an opulent planter and 
became a slaveholder. Neither have we heard anything of him 
for many years. The eldest daughter, Louisa, married about 
the year 1818 to a doctor by the name of Blair. I only 
remember of seeing her once. That was at her Uncle Isaac 
Morris’ in the summer of 1821. It being cherry time, her 
Uncle Jonathan Morris had got up a new one-horse pleasure 
wagon for his own convenience, and for the first time using 
it, he brought his niece and her two small children on a 
visit to her uncle’s. At the time I was at my grandfather’s 
and was much pleased to see the kind attention that was 
bestowed upon her and her little ones, all of which was 
richly merited from the amiable appearance of the mother 
and the artless prattle of her babes. When they were ready 
to depart after their few days’ sojourn, grandfather 
crowned their vessels of cherries with bunches adhering to 
the twig on which they grew, saying, “Show the folks in 
town how things grow in the country.” I have been thus 
particular in detailing those incidents to show the good 
feeling that existed between the two families, one 
considered the aristocracy of the town and the other the 
cultivators of the farm in its plainest and economical 
style.

	Eliza, the second daughter, I never knew personally. 
Report says that after her father’s death she and her 
sister Louisa and family moved to Pittsburgh, since no 
correspondence to my knowledge has been had of them.

	Jonathon Morris, the third brother, as near as I know, 
was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and never settled in 
life, but made home alternately among his brothers and 
sisters. He drew a pension, but at what amount I know not, 
nor do I know how or where he was disabled, as he always 
appeared to me sound in body and limbs. I have heard it 
said that he was one of the carpenters in building the 
first court house in Washington. I mentioned above that he 
had constructed a pleasure wagon for his own convenience. 
He afterwards built or had built a small market boat, as 
two of his brothers with whom he resided lived near the 
river, one six and the other eight miles above Brownsville, 
their place of marketing. The little craft would float down 
without effort and could be propelled by one person with a 
light return of freight very easily.

	His last effort at mechanism was cane-making. He would 
procure dogwood grubs, the stem for the shaft and the root 
for the head of the cane. The more crooks and curls the 
head had the more it was admired. When neatly dressed and 
varnished they made an elegant cane. He presented each of 
his brothers and nephews with a staff and favorite crooks 
and fine finishes denoted the different esteem he had for 
each recipient. He was reasonably well informed and of 
strictly moral and temperate habits, went well dressed and 
made himself agreeable wherever he went. He lived to a ripe 
old age and was gathered home among his relatives in peace.

	Jesse Morris, the fourth brother, settled in a little 
village called Fredericktown on the west bank of the 
Monongahela River about eight miles above Brownsville, at 
what period I can not ascertain, but suppose it was about 
the time that his brother Isaac settled near the same 
river, two miles below. He was a carpenter by trade and had 
a family of several children, but I can not recollect the 
names of more than two. The eldest was a daughter called 
Sarah, and the next was a son, Benjamin by name. In our 
childhood days we were much together, being near the same 
age, and living in sight of each other, although on 
opposite sides of the river. When father moved to Ohio it 
broke off our intimacy, and from that them I have not known 
much about them.

	In the War of 1812 this father (Jesse) was called into 
service and went out with the Pennsylvania troops in the 
autumn of the same year, and deceased in camp on their 
march to the west. Thus the family experienced the 
desolating effects of the war, and being in limited 
circumstances, they were scattered in all directions. 
Benjamin, the only son, engaged on the river, first as a 
hand on the various crafts, and afterwards as super cargo, 
which implies an employee to take charge of the crafts and 
cargoes for others. He continued in this service for many 
years. He never married, as I know of, but always had the 
honor of providing well for his aged mother while she 
lived. I have not heard of him for many years, but suppose 
he is now dead. I was informed a few years ago that some 
remnants of the family yet resided near Brownsville.

	Having given a short sketch of the four brothers of the 
Morris family, I will now say a little more about the two 
sisters. Sarah, the eldest, married and settled in 
Virginia. Although apparently separated by distance from 
her brothers and sisters in the west, there were frequent 
opportunities of correspondence by emigrants going from 
their immediate neighborhood to Columbiana County, Ohio, 
then called the far west. These emigrations occurred about 
the years 1805-7, and it was known that Isaac Morris kept 
what was termed a Quaker tavern, which is a free open house 
for all Friends and relations that chose to call. Among the 
emigrants of that vicinity were the families of Stanleys, 
Crews and Cobbs. They generally called on their way out, 
and thus the brothers could often hear more satisfactorily 
from their sister and his family in that way than by 
letter, which was in those early days expensive and 
uncertain. It was a great satisfaction to Isaac to have 
those emigrants to call, as he could neither read nor 
write, and he richly enjoyed communicative company.

	I never knew the number of Sarah Hattin’s children, 
having only heard the three sons spoken of – Jesse, Edward 
and Pleasant. I had the satisfaction of seeing Jesse in the 
autumn of 1812; made a trip with his team to western 
Pennsylvania and having turned to go home, called at his 
Uncle Isaac’s and my father’s, and I came from Ohio while 
he was there. He appeared to be a man of energy and 
business, but I have not heard much from him since.

	Edward came over to the west in the spring of 1811. If 
I am not mistaken, he made the journey on foot. He 
sojourned in Ohio during the summer, most of the time with 
his old friend (as he called him) Littleberry Crew, he 
having been near neighbor of his (Edward’s) father in 
Virginia, his two eldest children being sons about the same 
age of Edward. They went to school together and it seemed 
more like home to him than among his relations. Being a 
wheelwright by trade, he made the wood work of a new wagon 
for his friend Crew that summer and returned to Virginia 
the following autumn. Mary, the youngest sister, married a 
man by the name of Thomas Townsend. Whether they were among 
the first emigrants of the Morris families to the west I 
never learned. When I first knew them they were living on a 
farm a little west of Washington. That was in the autumn of 
1812. They afterwards moved to Belmont County, Ohio, and 
settled on a farm a few miles northwest of St. Clairsville. 
I visited them in the autumn of 1821, since which time I 
have not heard much from them. I believe their principal 
object in moving to Ohio was to get more among the Society 
of Friends, of which they were members. So far as my memory 
serves me, they had but three children, one son and two 
daughters. The son was near my age, and like myself named 
Morris after his mother’s maiden name. In the fore part of 
the summer of 1821 he spent some weeks with his Uncle 
Isaac, where I was sojourning at that time, but for the 
last 50 years or more I have heard nothing definitely from 
them.

	Having in the few preceding pages given a short history 
of the children of Jonathan and Mary Morris, I shall speak 
of their parents. I have no precise dates of their births, 
marriages or deaths. The birth of their second child Isaac 
Morris occurred on the 31st of the first month, 1751. At 
what date the father Jonathan Morris, deceased I have no 
knowledge. All I know of the mother is from personal 
recollection. We have no tradition to tell when she 
emigrated to the west or with which of her children. My 
memory serves me as far back as 1803, when she was living 
on a detached portion of her son Isaac’s farm, and his 
third daughter living with her. She was then about 18 years 
of age. She continued there while her grandmother lived. At 
or about the age of 20 she married a man named Joseph, a 
cooper by trade. They all lived together. He attended to 
the farm and occassionally to his trade. Of him and his 
wife I shall speak more particularly hereafter. Thus the 
grandmother, as she was always called, was very comfortably 
cared for.

	I regret much that I can not give her exact age, but 
from the best date I can obtain she was upwards of 70. I 
always heard her spoken of as being a very healthy woman 
and one much esteemed in the circle of her relations; also 
as a skillful midwife. She had three grandchildren called 
Benjamin, after her brother Benjamin West, the London 
artist. She deceased in the autumn of 1808 while on a visit 
at Washington.