Ohio History Journal

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352 Ohio Arch

352      Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

 

THOMAS MORRIS.

 

BY JAMES B. SWING, CINCINNATI, 0.

It is important that the memory of strong, brave men, who

have been conspicuous in their day, and influential for good,

should be kept green. There is nothing more inspiring than the

story of the life of an intellectual and moral hero.

There is a noble, a great name in the history of Ohio that

ought to be remembered and honored of all, but that is well-nigh

forgotten, a name that perhaps most of our young men never

heard, the name of Thomas Morris. I have heard that Hon.

George W. Julian, of Indiana, is writing a life of this man, and

can congratulate him upon the subject he has chosen, and con-

gratulate the public upon the prospect of a valuable addition to the

biographical literature of the day. I anticipate a fine tribute to

the memory of one who was remarkable for ability, force of char-

acter, eloquence, courage, and intense devotion to the cause of the

freedom and equal rights of all men.

Morris was born in Berks county, Pennsylvania, January 3,

1776. His parents removed to West Virginia when he was a

child. They were very poor, almost as poor as the father and

mother of Abraham Lincoln, and he grew up as a poor boy would

in the mountains of West Virginia in that early day. He came,

with some emigrants, to Hamilton county, Ohio, in 1795, when

nineteen years of age, and settled at Columbia, where he became

a clerk in a small grocery, and at a smaller salary; and while

there he was married to Rachel Davis, a daughter of Benjamin

Davis, one of the Columbia pioneers. He had grown to manhood

without educational advantages. It does not appear that he ever

went to school. His mother had taught him to read after a

fashion, and the chief, almost the only book of his childhood read-

ing, was the Bible. He afterward, though never a professedly

pious man, made most effective use of his knowledge of the Scrip-

tures in his public speeches, as Tom Corwin did, and as very many

of the most distinguished lawyers and statesmen have done. His

mother also taught him to hate slavery, a lesson he learned well,

as appeared in his after-life. She was a Virginia woman (born