WILLIAM WRIGHT MORRIS - Rusk County, Texas ***************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ Submitted by ETGS 24 Aug 2002 ***************************************************************** Originally published in the: EAST TEXAS FAMILY RECORDS WINTER 1981 WILLIAM WRIGHT MORRIS, A PIONEER JUDGE AND HIS HQME BY MRS. NED BRADFORD MORRIS I have never been to Natchez nor joined the Magnolia Trail to Charleston where beautiful southern ladies in perfectly new "Gone with the Wind" costumes accept, with aristocratic reluctance, a fee to let you in to their grandmothers' homes. But I, too, had a grandmother and she had a home where great statesmen were entertained almost a century ago. My grandmother's home is the old Morris place near Henderson, settled by Judge William Wright Morris in 1847. I think a short sketch of this remarkable man should be made before describing the home he founded. He was born in Halifax, North Carolina in 1805. There he was raised and educated and studied law. At the time that the new state of Texas was the promised land, he, a young bachelor about 40 years old, formed a train consisting of a young widowed sister (my grandmother), her two small sons and a little daughter, my mother. Besides these, his immediate dependents, he brought his own mother, an elderly widow, two younger brothers, Stephen and Berry, and their families, his overseer, several slaves, and made his way from Alabama to Henderson, Texas, partly by covered wagon and partly by boat via New Orleans. Judge Morris immediately became one of the leading lawyers of the new state, and a district judge in 1854. He rapidly acquired much East Texas land which, had he known of the molten gold beneath it, would have made him and his heirs immensely rich. He served two terms in the Legislature, promoted the first railroad in Texas, practiced 1aw in the courts of his district, and was well known as a contemporary of Roberts, "Three-legged Willie," Sam Houston, and other early distinguished Texans; and the county of Morris now bears his name. But it is not of his public life but the home and loving care he gave his orphaned family of nieces and nephews I wish to write as the oldest daughter of the niece he raised. His home, built in forty-nine, was located three miles north of Henderson in a valley, to be near a spring, while the ashes from the fires of migrating Indians were still on the neighboring hills. It was a square white clapboard house of four large, high-ceilinged rooms with a wide hall divided by double doors. A porch with square white columns ran across the front, the ends being cut off into two small bedrooms for children. At the back of the house an open passageway separated a large dining room and kitchen which formed an ell. This ell was separated from the house and divided in two rooms by a huge fireplace with iron pots and pans for cooking. Aunt Ann, who never claimed her freedom, usually cooked her soda and buttermilk biscuits in a Dutch oven with fire coals on the lid as she had not gotten used to the new Charter Oak cooking stove provided by my uncle for the kitchen side of the ell; and such biscuits, served with homemade sausages, lye hominy, fried apples or sweet potatoes, sweet butter and homemade peach preserves, made a Sunday morning breakfast not to be forgotten by the child who shared them more than 50 years ago. The scent of the blooming locust trees, the red apple tree where the first June apples ripened, the bees in their hives, the quacking ducks, the hens and guineas and the few peacocks, along with the Negro girl who kept flies off the table with a brush of peacock feathers, all go to make a picture of happy childhood which is ever fresh in my mind. My grandmother, Martha Morris Spivy, a young widow of near 30, was made mistress of this home, and her children, Dick, Bill and Ellen, never missed the love or advantages that a wealthy father might have given, under their bachelor uncle's care. After the house was built and surrounding cotton fields were planted and the slaves set to work to add to the judge's income, he began to order furniture from New Orleans to properly furnish a home where many distinguished contemporaries were to be entertained, especially since he was providing a proper background for his sister and niece, as well as for the two boys. The old high-ceilinged parlor, as I remember it after the Civil War, had a beautiful square Ives and Pond piano for my mother (a fine musician, whose teacher, Professor Mizner, was a pupil of Listz), a folding mahogany game table, the album, and many daguerreotypes, several old fashioned rockers, a long sofa covered with horse hair and the back ornamented with many carved roses, brass andirons; a pierced brass fender and brass handled shovel and tongs were always beside the red brick fireplace where, when company came, was quickly kindled the ready-laid fire. On the white painted walls hung two large French prints of boys and dogs. A car-pet of red roses covered the floor and Nottingham lace curtains were at the small paned windows, shaded by outside green slat blinds and closed for fear the sunlight would penetrate enough to fade the parlor carpet. The bedrooms, as I recall them, were furnished with rag carpets woven by the slaves, four post beds and bureaus from New Orleans, and home woven counterpanes of red and blue and white squares, each surmounted with square ruffled stiffly starched pillow shams embroidered in red. On the painted board walls hung several Currier and Ives prints. I especially remember, as appealing to my childish eyes, one of the playful kittens, now considered a rare find by collectors. In addition to this furniture my great-grandmother and her daughter-in-law brought two rare pieces of mahogany furniture all the way in covered wagons, an old mahogany bureau with small mirror, and a sewing table on a pedestal, both now in possession of Judge Morris' great-grandniece. The house had in front a small white picketed door yard filled with white syringa, common red rose bushes, borders of small yellow jonquils; and the big yard of about two acres contained the carriage house, barn and several large oak trees, where the grandchildren who used to gather there had rope swings. My grandmother, a careful soul, was always afraid the limbs would break with us but when I visited the home the last time, the oaks and all their branches were still in perfect condition though the youngest grandchild was much too old and heavy to swing. In the carriage house adjoining the barns decayed a large old fashioned Barouche with a high seat in front where the Negro driver sat. This family carriage was used to take my grandmother calling on the other first families of Henderson and to church, and to take the children to private schoo1s and dancing school. I have also heard that my great uncle, the Judge, used this to travel to Austin during his terms in the Legislature, driven by his colored man, Uncle Peter, who was both body servant and driver, handling the small iron-bound trunk strapped behind, in which were kept his papers and wardrobe. In the rear of the "Big House" were the slave quarters and huge log smoke-house where the home cured hams and bacon, dried fruits and potatoes and all home-grown provisions were stored. Even after the war I remember my grandmother never relinquished the huge smokehouse key as some of her slaves remained on the place after their freedom and "Old Missus" always "gave out" rations for her family and servants. As first mentioned, the master built his house near a spring flowing out of the hillside. Here he walled up with rock a small enclosed space with constantly running water where my grandmother kept her earthen crocks of freshly churned butter and fresh milk and buttermilk, always ready for the traveller who stopped to rest and tell the Texas news. One afternoon in '60 or '61, a young girl of 17 had pulled off her shoes and stockings to wade in the spring branch when Judge Morris came down to his spring with a young northerner who had lately graduated from the University of Michigan and found his way to Henderson, then the cultural town of Texas, to become a law student in Judge Morris' office. The blushing girl hastily put on her shoes and stockings and was properly introduced to her uncle's young northern law pupil, and this was the beginning of a romance between the North and South and my father and mother at the very beginning of the Civil War. I have heard it said that one June day in the early sixties the old parlor was opened to the family and a few friends to witness the marriage of my father, the young Yankee, and my mother, the tender1y raised southern girl. I have been told that my mother, a slender brunette of 17, weighing 95 pounds, was dressed in a white dotted Swiss dress, made with fichu and fu11 skirts to her insteps. She had her long black hair parted in the middle and plaited and coiled in two braided knots called biscuits on either side of her head. She wore long openwork lace mitts, black slippers crossed over the insteps with ribbons, a heavy necklace of coral looped in the center with a gold locket containing her uncle's picture (now in possession of her children). My father was very tall and handsome, 27 years old and weighing over 200 pounds, and I am sure wore the tight trousers and the long black full skirted coat and a chain across his vest woven of my mother's hair. Soon the war clouds, long hovering over the States, broke loose, and my father (Judge George Henry Gould, graduate of Michigan State University at Ann Arbor, Michigan --one of six Gould sons whose father was a "forty-niner" making enough money in the California gold rush to pay for his farm) was forced to decide between his people in the North and the young wife he lately married. Obeying the Bible injunction, of course, he remained with his wife and her people and after four years' service with the South returned to Judge Morris' office in Henderson as a law partner and loved relative. Last year for the first time I went back to the old home (house later was burned but in the spring you can still see the crepe myrtle trees in bloom) and had my picture of its prosperous days destroyed. Negroes had lived in the house and mutilated the rooms and wide hall where I used to see my uncle with his guests from town dance the stately square dances by the light of many candles placed over the doors and window sills. The long porch was torn off with its quare pillars and replaced with a cheap porch ornamented in the prevailing gingerbread style of 20 years ago. The spring was still flowing and the remains of the rock wall that enclosed the spring house were standing and the wild honeysuckle was as thick and sweet as when I plucked it to trim my leaf hats as a child. The old garden back of the house held one lone grave of rocks half hidden with mullen stalks. That is the grave of Judge Morris' mother which should have the inscription, "Mary Bacheller Morris, widow of Aquilla Morris of Alabama" who came with her son to found a few home in the wilds of Texas. After the freedom of the slaves, Judge Morris devoted himself to his law office and the development of his natural resources and railroads of Rusk County. He discovered on this place a very fine grade of pottery clay and for many years this clay was used. As I remember him in his latter years he was a heavy set, quite stout old gentleman with several double chins, brunette complexion, iron gray hair, a short gray beard, high pointed forehead, and piercing black eyes that saw with wisdom, humor and some cynicism, all the weaknesses of mankind. I was a favorite grandniece and he used to tell it on me, when in a teasing mood, that I was strong-minded and thought some day women would vote. He danced the old time square dances when the young people gathered at his home, and for the children he loved, would frequently take his violin across his breast and play and sing "Suzanna" and other Foster melodies. But no matter what his mood, his bearing and dignity always made suitable his title of "The Judge." Though retired from active practice, he nevertheless drove himself daily in an old buggy with a safe and ancient horse to his one story law office on the east side of the Henderson square. Here one day, at the age of 78, he was suddenly called to give an account of his life to the Supreme Judge of all Humanity, barely reaching the home he loved before he died. He left his large estate to the children of the niece and two nephews he raised, and a large time-stained statue of Justice, erected by them in the Henderson Cemetery, keeps the world from forgetting this fine lawyer, gentleman, and pioneer judge. But loving memories in the hearts of his grandnieces and nephews, the Spivys of St. Louis and Dallas and Bonham, the Moores and Morrises of Houston and Palestine, the Goulds, his niece's children, will remain forever and keep fresh the recollection of the many happy days of childhood spent at Uncle Wright's and Grandma's house. * * * * * * * This interesting plantation story was submitted by our member, William B. Bugg of San Antonio College, San Antonio, Texas. It was written by his late great-aunt, Mrs. Ned Bradford Morris, born Minnie Louise Gould. She was a native of Henderson and the daughter of Judge George Henry and Ellen Spivey Gould. She was the poet laureate emeritus of the Texas Women's Press Association. She was the mother of Mrs. George Gary who resides in Tyler and the aunt of Mrs. Mary Katherine Ayres Bugg of Troup. Minnie Gould Bradford was among the first female graduates of the University of Texas on March 27, 1889. * * * * * * * 19th CENTURY GRAVES SERVICES SATURDAY History buffd are invited to attend rededication services for a 19th Century rock grave north of Henderson at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. The grave is on a tract of land now owned by Henderson Clay Products. It is located in front of the brick plant office. The grave will now bear the name of Mary Bacheller Morris who was born in 1735 and came to Texas in 1847. The grave has just now been restored by by a memorial company of Tyler after being hidden by mullet stalks in the isolated field for more than a century. Mary Bacheller Morris was the widow of Judge Aquilla Morris. They were the parents of Judge Wright Morris, our first district judge in 1854, and a personal friend of General Sam Houston of Alamo fame. They also had a daughter, Martha Morris Spivey, who married George Gould, the first county judge during slavery and the one who brought the railroad, the International Great Northern, into Henderson. Everyone knowing of these families is urged and invited to attend the dedication. There will be a meeting later at the Howard-Dickinson House. * * * * * * * From the Henderson Daily News, Tuesday, October 25, 1977. (The gravestone of Mrs. Morris reads - "Mary Bacheller Morris, born 1785 - Widow of Judge Aquilla Morris and Mother of Judge William Wright Morris and Martha Morris Spivey - Grave on Site of Their Home Built 1847. Ed.)