OBIT: John Shaver MORRISON, 1890, Tyrone, Blair County, PA

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TYRONE TOPICS.

  Although anticipated in one or two instances, a singular fatality has 
attended some of our leading business men during the past week.  We are 
now called upon for the third time to record the demise of a prominent 
citizen of our town.  John Shaver Morrison, the subject of this notice, 
a son of John and Anna Morrison, was born in Aughwick valley, 
Huntingdon county, Pa., December 21, 1837, and died at his home on 
Washington avenue, Friday morning at 2.45, and at death was aged 52 
years, 9 months and 26 days.  Funeral service will be had at his late 
home on Monday at 10 a.m., October 21, after which his remains will be 
taken on day express to Mount Union for interment.  Owing to the 
difficulty of obtaining proper data we will give a more extended 
obituary notice in "Topics" of Monday of one whose demise has been a 
serious loss to this town.

Morning Tribune, Saturday, October 18, 1890

TYRONE TOPICS.

  In Saturday morning's "Topics" we briefly noted the death of John 
Shaver Morrison, of the firm of Morrison & Cass, at his home on 
Washington avenue, on Friday morning at 2.45 o'clock, of organic 
disease of the liver, after an illness which confined him to his house 
since August 3, although ailing somewhat since January last.  He was 
the son of John and Anna Morrison and was born on his father's farm, 
near Aughwick Mills, Huntingdon county, Pa., December 21, 1837, and was 
aged 52 years, 9 month and 26 days.  His childhood days were spent upon 
the farm and at a very early age his ability to manage was so marked 
that his father, after having served in the house of representatives 
for three years and in the senate of this state for a similar period, 
retired from active business life and gave him complete control of all 
his interests.  At the age of 19 he had finished his education, having 
completed the course of study at Millwood academy, at Shade Gap, and 
Cassville seminary.  He returned to the farm and remained there until 
the war in 1864.  He was instrumental in organizing and recruiting 
company K, of the Two Hundred and Second regiment Pennsylvania 
volunteers, with which he went out as first lieutenant, captain, A. 
Wilson Decker, and was afterward promoted and served with distinction 
until the close of the war.  In the latter part of 1865 he located at 
Roaring Spring, this county, and formed with Jacob Eby and D. M. Bare 
the firm of Eby, Morrison & Co., and engaged in the manufacture of 
paper.  In June, 1876, Joseph K. Cass, of Pittsburgh, was admitted and 
the firm name changed to Morrison, Bare & Cass, and in 1880 they built 
in this place a second mill, which has been under Mr. Morrison's 
personal supervision since.  January 1, 1886, Morrison & Cass took 
charge of the mill at this place as also the large paper warehouse of 
the company at Pittsburgh, Mr. Bare assuming control and ownership of 
the mill at Roaring Spring.  A few weeks previous to his death Mr. 
Morrison organized "The Morrison & Cass Paper Company," of which he was 
president, and was also the prime factor in the establishing of the 
First National bank and at its organization was elected president.  He 
was also a director and a stockholder in the Howard plate glass company 
of Pittsburgh, and in addition, in connection with A. A. Stevens, was 
largely interested in coal mining in Cambria county and other interests 
in Pennsylvania and in the west.  Some three years ago he had under 
serious contemplation the removal of the plant at this place, having 
received some liberal offers of sites and low offers of freight rates 
from Toledo and Lima, Ohio, and Chicago, and other points in the west 
in the natural gas line belt, but was persuaded by his friends here to 
continue, and after deciding to do so he immediately proceeded to 
enlarge the mill at this place, which is now the largest in the United 
States, directly employing some two hundred persons, and indirectly 
hundreds of others.  It has been the pleasure of the writer to be 
counted among his friends for the past twenty-five years.  He was a man 
who was held in highest respect by all our people.  He was honest, he 
was strictly honest, in all his dealings with his fellow men, and there 
is no man living or dead who was more highly respected by the people 
with whom he came in contact, either socially or in the way of 
business.  Much as we deplore his departure to the vast and mystic land 
from which no one comes back to reveal the secrets of the grave or that 
immortal land beyond, we have to say that no man more noble, more 
honest, than our friend Morrison ever ventured over the unknown and 
silent crossing from time to eternity.  Our friend's untimely departure 
seems like a poetic myth.  We can hardly believe that one so familiar 
to us in life can now be a passenger on the relentless chariot of 
death.  But the end has come and our friend has left us never to 
return.  Can we forget him?  Never, never, never!  The silver sheen of 
a bright congenial life has faded; the living man has gone out in 
death, but his death is a sleep of eternal rest.  His good deeds are 
immortal.  Humanity claims him for her own.  Time may eventually 
obliterate the heart-burnings of relatives and friends who now mourn 
the death of a man who should not have been born to die, but old Time 
will never replace the vacancy that has been left by his untimely 
taking off.  No writer can now frame his epitaph.  The shock occasioned 
by his death is too sudden.  He was known from the east to the west end 
of the continent, and in his death Tyrone, to say nothing of the great 
state of Pennsylvania, loses a paragon of honesty and virtue and a 
bright particular star in the social element of this community.  He 
rests in undisturbed and untroubled peace.  A republican in politics 
and humanity his creed.  He leaves behind two sisters - Mrs. Catharine 
Eby, of Ardenheim, and Miss Mary Morrison, of Mount Union, Huntingdon 
county, and nieces and nephews by the former, and sons and daughters of 
his departed sister, Mrs. H. J. Etnier, over all of whom he has 
exercised a kindly and solicitous guardianship, especially the latter.  
Clarence Etnier, now in Superior, Montana; John M. Etnier, of South 
Bend, Washington; Miss Laura, who has been his faithful housekeeper; 
Albert I., of this place; Oliver L., Carey E., of Pittsburgh, and 
Virginia C., who made her home with her uncle.  In this family, the 
blow will be most severely felt.  A change has been made in the funeral 
from that given in Saturday's "Topics," as will be noticed from the 
following: Services will be had at his late home, on Washington avenue, 
this morning at 10.30, to be conducted by Rev. B. B. Hamlin, D.D., Rev. 
J. R. Davies and Rev. George Leidy, after which the remains will be 
taken to the station and placed on board a special train consisting of 
a combination car and three coaches, which will leave at 12.30 p.m. and 
from thence to Mount Union, where he will be laid beside the dear ones 
who have gone before.  This has been done to accommodate the many who 
desire to follow the remains to their last resting place.  Excursion 
tickets will be issued and the train upon its return will leave Mount 
Union at 4 p.m.

Morning Tribune, Monday, October 20, 1890