George Morehouse Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1544-1547 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	An engraving and the signature of George Morehouse faces 
	page 1544.


	GEORGE MOREHOUSE, deceased, late of Brookings, was one of the 
representative bankers and capitalists of the state and one of its most 
honored citizens, while the lesson of his career is a valuable one, 
showing a particular mastering of expedients, a strong mental grasp and 
a rare powder of initiative, through which forces he has attained a high 
degree of success and won the proud American title of self-made man. 

	Mr. Morehouse was a native of the old Empire state, having been 
born in the town of Holley, Orleans county, New York, on the 23d of 
December, 1839, being a son of Carlton Morehouse, born in Galloway, 
Saratoga county, New York, on the 11th of December, 1797. The latter was 
a son of Caleb and Abigail Morehouse, the former of whom was born in the 
western part of Connecticut, whence he removed to Saratoga county, New 
York, immediately after the war of the Revolution, and there for many 
years was engaged in agricultural pursuits. His children were as 
follows: Erastus, Ransom, Carlton, Henry and William. The father of 
Caleb Morehouse was the original progenitor of the family in America, 
whither he emigrated from England in the colonial epoch of our national 
history, taking up his abode in the western part of Connecticut. During 
the war of the Revolution his. live stock was confiscated by the British 
soldiers, among the animals taken being a yoke of oxen, which, after a 
few days, returned to the home farm, much to the surprise and 
gratification of the owners. In 1846 Caleb Morehouse came west to Kane 
county, Illinois, in company with his son Carlton, father of the 
subject, and he died at the home of his son Henry, in Plato township, 
Kane county, Illinois, said son having been a clergyman of the Methodist 
Episcopal church and a circuit rider in Illinois from 1848 to 1853. The 
wife of Caleb Morehouse died in Saratoga county, New York, prior to his 
removal to the west. Each of their sons was married in Saratoga county, 
and the son Henry, who was a local preacher and a farmer, was the first 
of the family to locate in the west, having resided for a time in Kane 
county, Illinois, whence he removed to Janesville, Bremer county, Iowa, 
where he passed the remainder of his life. He was the father of two 
children, Bertha and Hattie. Erastus, the eldest of the sons of Caleb 
Morehouse, passed his entire life in Saratoga county, New York; Ransom 
died when a young man; and William, the youngest, became a resident of 
Janesville, Iowa, about 1866, and there he was engaged in the meat-
market business during the remainder of his active business life, 
retaining his home there until his death. 

	Carlton Morehouse, the father of the subject, was reared and 
educated in Saratoga county, New York, growing up on the pioneer farm 
and in his early youth securing employment as clerk in a local 
mercantile establishment. On the 7th of December, 1825, was solemnized 
his marriage to Miss Eliza Cornell, who was born on the 12th of March, 
1806, and whose death occurred on the 2d of July, 1863, she being a 
daughter of William Cornell, of Saratoga county, New York, the Cornell 
family having been of English lineage and the name having long been 
identified with the annals of American history. William, Sr., had only 
two children, and his son and namesake removed to Illinois and took up 
his abode on a farm at Pleasant Ridge, where he passed the remainder of 
his life. After his marriage Carlton Morehouse removed to Orleans 
county, New York, about 1838, and there he was engaged in general 
merchandise business until 1846, when he removed with his family to 
Plato township, Kane county, Illinois, where he engaged in farming, 
later becoming a traveling salesman for Ezra Wood & Company, of Chicago, 
manufacturers of agricultural implements, remaining thus engaged until 
his death. His health had been somewhat impaired during the winter of 
1854-5 but he had recuperated sufficiently so that he felt himself able 
to resume his work, and he went to Chicago and died very suddenly, of a 
congestive chill, while in the office of his employers, his demise 
occurring on the 6th of April, 1855. He was a Democrat in his political 
proclivities and served as supervisor of his township after his removel 
to Illinois. He and his wife were members of the Baptist church and were 
folk of sterling character, ever commanding the respect of all who knew 
them. Carlton Morehouse was a man of fine intellectual gifts and marked 
ability, and his early death alone prevented his rising to a position of 
prominence in connection with the public and civic affairs of the state 
of Illinois, of which he was an honored pioneer. Carlton and Eliza 
(Cornell) Morehouse became the parents of six sons, concerning whom we 
enter the following brief record: Ransom, who was born in Saratoga 
county, New York, on the 23d of March, 1827, married Margaret Brown, and 
he died in Denver, Colorado. Frederick D., who was born in Galloway, 
Saratoga county, on the 5th of June, 1829, died in Orleans county, New 
York, on the 16th of July, 1845. William Henry, who was born in 
Galloway, Saratoga county, on the 10th of January, 1832, married Minerva 
A. McArthur, and devoted his life to farming and merchandising, his 
death resulting as the result of an operation performed in the city of 
Chicago, where he passed away on the 17th of June, 1901. Charles, who 
was born in Saratoga county, March 13, 1835, died the following year. 
George is the immediate subject of this sketch. Ezra Wilson, who was 
born in Saratoga county, April 13, 1845, was a soldier in the Union army 
during the war of the Rebellion and died on the transport "Spread Eagle" 
on the Mississippi river, near Napoleon, Arkansas, on the 19th of 
January, 1863, his body being interred with military honors at 
Milliken's Bend, Mississippi. The subject of this sketch has little 
knowledge in regard to his maternal grandmother, but after her death her 
husband, William Cornell, married Katherine Deforrest Fox, of the old 
Holland stock of the Mohawk valley of New York. He was born December 31, 
1788, and died on the 1st of July, 1859. 

	George Morehouse passed the first twenty years of his life on the 
home farm, while he attended the district schools until he had attained 
the age of sixteen years. At the age of nineteen he left the farm and 
entered the Bryant & Stratton Business College, in the city of Chicago, 
where he completed a six-months course. In the following autumn he 
secured a position in the Racine County Bank, at Racine, Wisconsin, and 
in the following spring, that of 1861, he manifested the intrinsic 
loyalty and patriotism of his nature by tendering his services in 
defense of the Union, in response to the first call for volunteers. He 
enlisted as a member of Company F, Second Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 
but was later rejected on account of physical disability. In order to 
recuperate his health he then made a fishing expedition along the coast 
of the gulf of St. Lawrence, and in the autumn of 1861 returned to 
Wisconsin and assumed the position of bookkeeper in the office of the 
Racine Advocate. In the spring of 1863 he was made chief accountant for 
Captain J. M. Tillapaugh, who had charge of the enumerating of men 
eligible for military service, superintending the drafting of soldiers, 
etc., and thus the subject was located in the city of Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin, until the spring of 1864, when he went to Brazier City, 
Louisiana, as bookkeeper in the employ of Captain C. H. Upham, a brother 
of ex-Governor William H. Upham, of Wisconsin, and there he remained 
until the close of the war, when he returned to the north and located in 
Janesville, Iowa, where he was employed as bookkeeper in the flouring 
mill of his brother Ransom until 1872, when he was elected treasurer of 
Bremer county, retaining this incumbency three terms and having had no 
opposing candidate on the occasion of his second and third elections, 
the different parties each placing his name on its ticket. He thus 
served from 1872 until 1878, and during the last two years of this 
period he also held the position of cashier of the Bremer County Bank, 
in Waverly. On the first of January, 1880, he resigned this latter 
executive office and in the spring of the same year came to Dakota and 
settled in Brookings, where he took up his abode on the 27th of 
February, forthwith directing his efforts to the establishing of a 
private banking institution, in which the interested principals were 
himself and his brother William H., of Burlington, Iowa. In 1884 the 
bank was incorporated with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and of 
the same, known as the Bank of Brookings, the subject continued as 
cashier until the 1st of January, 1902, since which time he has served 
as president. In the meanwhile, in 1883, the two brothers also 
established a private bank at Estelline, this state, the same being 
afterward incorporated as the Bank of Estelline, and of this institution 
the subject was vice-president, while he was also one of the 
incorporators of the First National Bank of Volga, Brookings county, in 
the spring of 1902, being president of this institution. Mr. Morehouse 
was a man of rare business ability, public-spirited, upright and 
straightforward in all the relations of life, and he not only 
contributed in a material way to the advancement of the interests of the 
great state of South Dakota but also held at all times the unequivocal 
confidence and regard of those with whom he came in contact, being one 
of the-honored and distinctively representative citizens of the state. 
He served for eight years as a member of the board of regents of the 
State Agricultural College, in Brookings, and also was a valued member 
of the board of education for a number of years. He was from the time of 
its organization a director and treasurer of the Brookings Land and 
Trust Company and was also financially interested in numerous other 
corporations in the city, ever lending his aid and influence to 
furthering all enterprises which make for the progress and well being of 
the community. His political allegiance was given to the Republican 
party, and his religious faith was that of the Baptist church, of which 
he was a zealous member and to which his widow belongs. He held the 
office of clerk of the local church from the time of its organization, 
in 1880. His devotion to the work of the church may be better understood 
when we state that for eighteen years, or until the church debt was 
liquidated, he gave his services as janitor, sparing no pains in 
attending to the work which he thus assumed and arising at five o'clock 
Sunday mornings to attend to the building of fires in the church and 
otherwise providing for the comfort of the worshipers. He was known as a 
man of liberality in the support of all good works, but used proper 
discrimination in the extension of charity and in other benevolences, 
while he was ever ready to aid all churches, being tolerant and kindly 
at ail times, and believing that Christianity represents, the bulwarks 
of our national prosperity and spiritual welfare. He manifested 
particular interest in the success of the Baptist college at Sioux 
Falls. and this interest was timely and helpful. Fraternally he was a 
charter member of Lodge No. 21, Free and Accepted Masons, in Brookings. 
The family residence is the finest in the city and is a center of 
gracious and refined hospitality. He was the artificer of his own 
fortunes and his noteworthy success represents the results of industry, 
integrity and wise economy. He died November 2, 1903, at his home in 
Brookings, the cause of his death being cancer of the stomach. 

	On the 26th of August, 1867, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
Morehouse to Miss Anna B. Crosby, who was born in Belvidere, Illinois, 
on the 23d of January, 1845, a daughter of Henry L. Crosby, who was born 
in Fredonia, Chautanqua county, New York, on the 29th of October, 1819, 
while his wife, whose maiden name was Mary E. King, was born in Delphi, 
Onondaga county, that state, on the 30th of January 1819, their marriage 
having occurred at Fairfield, Kane county, Illinois, on the 10th of 
March, 1842, while the officiating clergyman was Rev. John S. King, 
father of the bride. Henry L. Crosby was a son of Nathaniel, who was 
born in Thompson, Connecticut, February 18, 1786, while the latter's 
wife, whose maiden name was Sallie Merrill Larned, was born in the same 
place December 6, 1793. The maternal grandfather of Mrs. Morehouse was 
born in Arlington, Bennington county, Vermont, January 16, 1787, and his 
wife, Anna, nee Bristol, was born in Cornwall, Litchfield county, 
Connecticut, July 23, 1783. John S. King was a clergyman of the Baptist 
church and was also a physician. Henry L. and Mary E. (King) Crosby 
became the parents of seven children, concerning whom we offer the 
following brief record: Sarah L. was born in Boone county. Illinois, 
April 7, 1843; Anna B. became the wife of the subject of this review; 
Elsie who was born September 1, 1846, died in September, 1871; Lucy, who 
was born May 29, 1848, died in infancy; William H., who was born 
September 12 1849, died in March, 1903, at San Antonio, Texas; Ernest, 
born December 15, 1852, is a resident of Brookings, and Lucia E., who 
was born September 19, 1857, is a resident of Oakland, California. 

	Mr. and Mrs. Morehouse became the parents of two children. Mary 
Eliza. who was born in Janesville, Iowa, on the 25th of September, 1870, 
died on the 13th of January, 1875. Henry Carlton, who was born in 
Waverly, Iowa, September 17, 1877, still remains at the parental home. 
He was graduated in the Brookings high school, as a member of the class 
of 1896, and thereafter continued his studies for three years in the 
State Agricultural College. in this place, while later he completed a 
commercial course in the same institution. After leaving college he made 
a trip through Europe and through the Pacific coast states of the Union. 
He is at present engaged in the real-estate business at Willow City, 
North Dakota, though, as before stated, he makes his home with his 
mother in Brookings.