California Biographies Mendocino and Lake Counties, California Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California With Biographical Sketches History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry Illustrated, Complete In One Volume Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914 WILLIAM MORRIS. � There are few families even among those who ventured earliest to California who have had lives so crowded with events of interest as the Morris family, and a mere narration of their experiences, with- out any attempt at embellishment, would give a vivid picture of the trials and hazards which accompanied the beginnings of development in the west. Rev. Milton Morris, father of William Morris, was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church for fifty years, and he married a daughter of Rev. N. B. Dodge, who commenced his missionary labors in the middle west, among the Osage Indians, in the early twenties of the last century. Thus to the usual adventures which fall to the lot of those who establish their homes in new settlements were added the privations and sacrifices of those who devote themselves to the uplifting of their fellows, and the records they have left may well be a source of pride and inspiration to their descendants, or indeed to any who read the story. The Morris family is one of the "First Families" of Virginia, and Milton Morris was born at Lynchburg, that state. He was but two years old when his father died, after which the family moved to Knoxville, Tenn., where the boy was reared. From his earliest years he was trained in the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal church, and early became a local preacher of that denomi- nation, receiving a license when twenty-one years old. Not long afterward he went west to labor among the Osage Indians at the Boudinot Mission in southeastern Kansas, which had been established in 1827 by Rev. N. B. Dodge, and in the year 1831 he married Sarah Dodge. They were the first white couple to be married within the boundaries of what is now the state of Kansas. Of their life and labors, something will be found in the narrative which follows, taken from an account which was written January 9, 1893, by Mrs. "Sally" Morris, then in her eighty-second year and a resident of St. Helena, Napa county, Cal. It is sufficient here to record that a family of nine children were born to them, namely: Thomas, John Milton, Sarah, Newell. Nathaniel Brown, William, Lucy, Harriet and Edward, of whom only Harriet and William sur- vive, the former a resident of Eureka, Humboldt county, Cal. ; she is the widow of Joseph Tracy. In the winter of 1821, when Mrs. Morris was but nine years old, her father's family was one of a party consisting of ten families and five unmarried lady teachers sent out by the American Board of Foreign Missions to establish a mission among the Osage Indians, her father, Rev. N. B. Dodge, of Underhill (formerly of Barre), Vt., being chosen general superintendent. The Dodges set out in hired wagons for New York City, where they were to meet the rest of the missionaries. After a week's delay at New York on account of Mrs. Dodge's illness, they went by steamer to Philadelphia, where they set out in large crooked-bed wagons (difficult to get in and out of) for their journey across the Allegheny mountains to Pittsburgh. The roads were bad, old and young were uncomfortably cooped up together, and they were glad, upon coming to long hills, to accept the driver's invitation to get out to walk, which exercise involved none of the "seasickness" brought on by the motion and stuffiness of the tightly covered wagons. Each day's trip had to be so long as to bring the party to certain houses along the road, and one day Sally deter- mined to walk as far as the teams went. The distance was twenty-two miles, and she was so footsore the next day that she never attempted the feat again. In due time the party reached Pittsburgh, where two keelboats awaited them which had been built for their voyage down the Ohio and up the Mississippi, Missouri and Osage rivers. They started with two captains and twelve hired men, making good time, and stopping at the principal towns for supplies. One man fell overboard and was drowned, and at Marietta, Ohio, they buried Mrs. Samuel Newton and her infant child � the first break in the mission families, and the only serious calamity to mark the trip down the Ohio. It was different ascending the Mississippi and Missouri. Cordelles (long tow- ing ropes) were rolled up and placed in skiffs, which went up the river the length of the rope. After it was fastened to a tree all hands would pull "for life" until the tree was reached, and the process would then be repeated. The greater part of the way long poles were used to propel the boats upstream, or all hands would get hold of the brush and pull for some island or bar. They frequently got caught on these bars, for half days at a time. While they were toiling up the Missouri in this fashion Sally fell in the water, and had gone under the third time when one of the men dived after her and caught her by the hair, and with the assistance of two other men, with skiffs, brought her apparently lifeless to the keels, where she was resuscitated by Dr. Belcher, the physician of the party. After four months of river travel they arrived as far up the Big Osage as their keelboats could go, stopping at a place called Rapidecaw, fifteen miles below where the town of Papinsville, Mo., is now located. Their mission, which they named Harmony Mission, was to be on the banks of the Big Osage one mile from what is now Papinsville, and all their goods had to be unloaded and conveyed this distance of fifteen miles in skiffs (or rowboats). The Indians were swarming on the banks and none of the party could under- stand a word they spoke, nor could any of the Indians understand them. Eventually they found a white man by the name of Bill Williams, living among the Indians, who was hired as interpreter, and with his assistance they were able to proceed with their arrangements for getting settled. They accom- plished the task of moving up to Harmony in the month of August, 1821, and pitched their tents after seven months of travel between Vermont and their destination, near what is now Papinsville, in Bates county. Mo. Then a man was sent back to the settlement to hire men to come out to put up the neces- sary log cabins and help care for the sick. While they were living in the tents the little two-year-old son of Rev. Mr. Dodge died, having been sick all the way from New York. Three more of the party died before the cabins were ready, Mrs. Montgomery and child and Mr. Seely, their wagonmaker. The houses were of logs, sixteen feet square, cabin joined to cabin in a long row. The roofs were of shakes (clapboards as they called them) weighted down with heavy logs, and the doors also were made of shakes. Each cabin had one small window. Though these little dwellings were humble they seemed very secure after the long journey in which sickness and death were added to their ordinary hardships, and the missionaries were eager to begin their work. A larger building was put up, the lower part for a schoolroom, the upper part for stores, which consisted chiefly of clothes for the Indian children, and after the latter were properly dressed they attended school in the same room as the children of the white people who had come out to help them. Mrs. Morris learned- to speak the Osage language just as well as English. All of the mission party ate at the same table. Their "coffee" was made of parched wheat, sweetened with honey, as long as the meal lasted. At last their flour and meal gave out, and then they had two large iron kettles put up in an arch which served to boil their hominy in. It had to be boiled every day, to be sweet, and for six months they had nothing else to live on � not a morsel of bread in all that time. They used to say the mission ought to be called "Hominy" instead of Harmony. Nearly all the party became sick and help- less, suffering for want of proper food before they got relief and mills were built. One day they heard of twin Indian babies being tied together and thrown into the bushes by the Redmen, and rescued them. The girl soon died, but the boy, whom they named Moses, lived for seven years afterward. With all the disheartening experiences, there were some amusing incidents. Rev. Mr. Montgomery took a trip to the settlements, over one hundred miles away, and having nothing better mounted an ox, which bore him safely; on his return it was whispered that he was in pursuit of a wife, but the narrative does not say how the matter turned out. In this connection it may be related that when it was learned at the Union Mission, among the Little Osage Indians some hundred miles to the south, that there were single ladies at Harmony, the men came up from there and married all but one, taking them to their own mission and leaving Harmony quite destitute of teachers. (Some years after- ward, while in charge of Boudinot Mission. Rev. Mr. Dodge returned to Ver- mont and brought out two more lady teachers for the latter mission, and they had been in the west only a short time when Dr. Leonard Dodge and Nathaniel Dodge, elder brothers of Mrs. Morris, married them.) In 1827, the Indians being removed to Neosho county, in the southeastern part of Kansas, some sixty miles from Harmony, Rev. Mr. Dodge followed them and established the Boudinot Mission, near the Old Chouteau Agency on the Neosho river. His daughter Sally went with him. After their build- ings were completed the fencing around the dwellings had to be made secure against the Indians, with locks on every gate, for the savages would steal at every opportunity. At the Osage Agency, seven miles away from Boudinot, lived the government blacksmith (who did work for the Indians) with his family. One Sunday morning he left his gate unlocked, and up walked twenty Osage warriors, spears in hand, saying to him, "Don't you want to die?" He replied, "No, I've lived through the-cholera, and I don't want to die now." At that they ran their spears through him, and he staggered and fell into his wife's arms, expiring instantly. After she had lived two years in this danger- ous region, her father preaching and her brother Newell acting as interpreter, Sally Dodge broke down in health and her father sent her back to Harmony, to her married sister's, to recuperate. Remaining there three months, in the meantime she became acquainted with a young man named Milton Morris, just out from Tennessee, and when she returned to Boudinot he accompanied her home. The next day, after Mr. Dodge had preached, he married them, the ceremony taking place in the presence of the family, two hired men and some Indians, and it is presumed they were the first white couple ever married in what is now the state of Kansas. After their marriage the young couple remained with her father at Boudi- not about six months. leaving in the spring of 1832 for Little Osage. Mo., where settlers were beginning- to come in. They lived in that section of Missouri for nearly twenty years, during which time Mrs. Morris's brother Nathaniel was killed there by Indians, and her brother Newell wounded at the same battle, defending the settlers against an invasion of the Osages. As Mrs. Morris spoke Osage fluently she was often called upon to interpret when trouble arose between the whites and Indians. On one occasion she had to lead fifteen men to the camp of three hundred Osages to order the latter to leave the country. Another time, when her brother Dr. Dodge was in her house, a large warrior of the Osages entered, and drawing his butcher knife from the scabbard made for the Doctor. The latter took up a large fire poker and punched him out of the house, and he left for parts unknown. So they lived in continual dread for years. There was no mill to grind their corn, and flour was unknown in many sections of the country. Frequently Mr. Morris had to go forty or fifty miles to mill, leaving his wife with only two little children. Often there would be no man about the farm. They lived near the river, and when the stream was swollen travelers would halt On the opposite bank and holloa. Mrs. Morris would cross with the canoe, help swim the horses and ferry the men over. Mr. Morris being in poor health half the time, they resorted to many expedients to make a living. They would take their two children in the canoe, hunt and cut bee trees, and gather nuts. Deer and wild turkey were plentiful until the country became settled. After the settle- ment had been established some time, during the hard period of the forties, there was one entire year in which Mr. and Mrs. Morris saw but one silver dollar, and this, their only piece of money, she earned by making a coat. Mr. Morris was sick most of that year, and Mrs. Morris made forty coats by hand, besides pants and vests, taking her pay in corn, pork, potatoes, jeans, home- made cotton cloth, etc. One year when money was scarce they camped oiit on the Big Osage bottom, where Mr. Morris cut down pecan trees, and Mrs. Morris and the children gathered the nuts until they had sixty bushels, which they sent to St. Louis and sold for goods, receiving one dollar a bushel. This was all their store bill for a year, and there were then nine in the family. Toiling thus in sickness and poverty for a period of twenty years, they moved to the state of Iowa, bargaining there for the site upon which Council Bluffs is now located. It was then known as Cainsville. But after he had made the bargain Mr. Morris became alarmed at being in the midst of the Mormons and would not move onto his purchase, there being only about seven- teen Gentiles there among a population of between two thousand and three thousand Mormons. They remained two or three years in Iowa, among a population about half Mormon, and all the Gentile meetings of the Settlement were held at their home, which was also the stopping place of the preachers, Mr. Morris having been in the active ministry for twelve or fifteen years. From the Otoe Indians they bought the right to move into Nebraska in 1854, and Mr. Morris was the first man to cross the Missouri river into Cass county, that state, in the year named. Here again, among the Otces, Pawnees and other tribes, Mrs. Morris was frequently left with five or six young children while her husband and older sons hauled corn, flour, bacon and other groceries over the Missouri river from Iowa to supply what was practically a free hotel, the Morrises never charging anything for accommodations, though they often had to make beds all over the floor for travelers. For the first two years the family lived in that section all the religious exercises held in the neighborhood were conducted at their home. There also the first quarterly meeting ever held in either Kansas or Nebraska was held (see "The Out Posts of Zion," by William H. Good). The Otoes spoke the Osage language well enough so Mrs. Morris could converse with them, and the chiefs from far and near used to come to talk with her. One morning when all the family were away except herself and her son William, then twelve or thirteen years old, and a child still younger, and the only other white person about was a neighbor boy the same age as her own, seven Pawnee warriors approached and wanted her to give them the household utensils. Mrs. Morris sat down in the doorway to prevent them entering, holding her younger child in her arms. The neighbor boy said, "Give them what they want and they will go off," but she refused to give them a thing. When they stepped back to their bows and arrows, and began to spring them as if making ready to shoot, she put down her child, took up a club and made after them. They all jumped the fence and ran from the place, going up near to what is now Plattsmouth, where they ran two white men unaccustomed to Indian ways off their claims. At this location the family remained about two years, when Mr. Morris sold out to Mr. Cazad, the government surveyor, and in 1857, after burying their son Brown (who died at the age of sixteen years) on the farm, Mr. and Mrs. Morris set out with their belongings for California, crossing the plains with ox teams. They encountered the ordinary incidents and dangers of that trip and arrived in Trinity county in the fall of that year, for the two years follow- ing engaging in mining, hotel-keeping and farming there ; they sold no intoxi- cants at their hotel, all the family being teetotalers. Subsequently they resided in Napa county for several years, and meantime, in 1864, the eldest son, Thomas, died at Trinity. It was after this that they went back east, again crossing the plains with ox teams, and spent some time in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, during which time the second son, John, joined them in the Delaware reserve, in Kansas, and came out with them on their return to California, in the spring of 1867. Mr. and Mrs. Morris then settled in Napa county, where they lived principally from that time, about 1879 moving to Mores Creek, that county. She made one visit east by rail. Except for the lack of disturbance by the Indians her life here was as romantic and eventful as ever. After moving to the west she made a trip overland with her husband from the bay of San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, by team, journeyed considerably over the state of Nevada, and made a trip from Napa to Eureka, Humboldt county, Cal. From childhood she had been accustomed to hard work. While at the missions she had to milk ten cows morning and evening, besides helping her mother with the housework, and she considered it an everyday matter to work from morning till night and then sit up sewing until nine or ten o'clock. Except when she was actually bedfast she never kept a servant of any kind, and during all the years she made so many coats, vests and pants she had a family of seven children to care for as well, doing all her own house work. At the time she wrote the article from which these reminiscences are taken she was doing the housework for a family of four, washing, mending and cooking, though in her eighty-second year. She never weighed more than one hundred and thirteen pounds at any time in her life. Mr. Morris died February 4, 1891, when nearly eighty-four years old. With the exception of the memorable trip out to Harmony Mission from the east, his life was fully as eventful as that of his wife. For nearly fifty years he was a minister of the gospel. William Morris, fifth son of Rev. Milton and Sarah (Dodge) Morris, was born in Bates county. Mo., May 3, 1841, and in his youth had such experiences as fall to the lot of few. Living on the frontier in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and western Iowa, he had more than one hair's-breadth escape from the cruel- ties and trickiness of the Indians, as well as the Mormons who were then very numerous in western Iowa, and he was but sixteen when he came out to the coast with his parents. For about two years they lived at Minersville, in Trinity county, in 1859 moving to near St. Helena, in Napa county, where he was engaged in farming until he returned to Minersville in the fall of 1862. There he followed mining, but when in the winter of 1862-63 Massachusetts received permission to enlist a battalion of cavalry in California he joined the organization, on February 16, 1863, becoming a member of Company E, Second Massachusetts Cavalry. The command was transported from San Francisco to Boston at once, by way of Panama, and immediately sent to the front, to the Department of Washington, being attached to the Army of the Potomac, under Colonel Lowell. It was in thirty-two engagements, the first of which was at Ashby Gap, Va., and saw such trying service, with severe losses, that recruits were constantly in demand to keep its ranks filled. Its operations were in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, keeping back Mosby's guerrillas. In August, 1863, Mr. Morris was captured, near Alexandria, Va., in sight of the dome of the capitol, by Mosby's men, was taken to Libby prison and thence over to Belle Isle, and becoming helpless after an attack of measles was carried back to the hospital at Libby. That year he was exchanged, help- less and speechless, and was moved to the hospital at Annapolis, where he improved steadily. When convalescent he received a special order to go to his regiment, which he rejoined at Poolesville, Md., in May, 1864. From that time until the close of the war he served under Sheridan, was discharged July 21, 1865, at Fairfax Court House, Virginia, and paid out at Boston, Massachusetts. Immediately after receiving his honorable dismissal from the United States service Mr. Morris proceeded to Fremont county, Iowa, where he became a student at Tabor College, attending that institution four months. There he renewed his acquaintance with Miss Susanna Wilson, daughter of Samuel and Martha B. Wilson, of Tabor, Iowa, and they were married, con- tinuing to live in Fremont county until their removal to western Kansas, where Mr. Morris took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres, which, however, he subsequently abandoned. Thence they came to California, being accompanied by Mrs. Morris's father, and in the year 1891 settled at St. Helena, Napa county, where they made their home for three years. In 1894 they settled in Scotts valley. Lake county, Mr. Morris farming there very successfully until four years ago, when they moved to Lakeport to enjoy in comfortable retirement the rewards of a busy life. He built a substantial residence at the corner of Ninth and Forbes streets, and although he was in rather frail health in his earlier life he is in excellent condition now, well pre- served and attending actively to all his affairs. While living in Iowa he became interested in bees and bee culture, and the experience and knowledge he has gathered on this subject has won him considerable fame among apiarists, particularly through the numerous articles he has contributed to journals in various parts of the country. His advice on bee keeping published in the "American Bee Journal," of Chicago, Illinois; the St. Helena (California) Star, and the Falls City (Nebraska) Journal; and his popular articles to the Toledo Blade and to local papers, have made his name well and favorably known in more than one section of the country. All his life Mr. Morris has held progressive and advanced views on the leading questions of the day. It is a fact that he was only a boy when he prayed for the day when his mother and sister might have the right to vote, and he has lived to see this dream realized and is hoping for the realization of other cherished plans for the betterment of mankind generally. Personally he has never used tobacco in any form, or ever tasted an intoxicant of any kind, and he is a firm believer in total abstinence and an advocate of Prohibi- tion doctrines, looking forward to their ultimate triumph as his father worked for and held to his faith in abolition. Mr. Morris cast his first vote for Lincoln, his second presidential vote for Grant, and for some time he has voted with the Prohibition party. He advocates clean politics as well as right living in all the relations of life, and is ready to fight corruption wherever found. He and his wife and family are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) at Lakeport, and their influence is cast with all good movements. Nine children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Morris : Sarah L. is the wife of LaFayette Hendricks, of Lake county, and they have a family of six children, Clarence Clifford, Emma V., Marion L., Etta Marie, Olive Irene and Elzada Louise ; Martha Louise married Homer Miner and died when twenty- one years old in Rawlins county, Kansas, leaving one child, which died in infancy; Nellie S. is the wife of S. D. Abercrombie. of Lakeport, and has a family of five children, William (principal of the Middletown grammar school), Robert, Harold, Mabel and Irene ; John W., a farmer in Scotts valley, married Ellen Simpson and has two children. Elbert and Eleanor; Harriet Olive, who lives at home, is engaged as a telephone operator; Marietta I. died at Redlands. California, when twenty-six years old, unmarried ; Emma Rebecca, living at home, is also a telephone operator; Helen Mercedes, wife of J. W. Curdy, a carpenter, of Lakeport, has two children, James Winfred and Harriet Susanna; Violet died in infancy. Mrs. Morris, the mother of this family, is a most estimable woman, highly thought of among her neighbors. Samuel Wilson, father of Mrs. Morris, was born in Athens county, Ohio, and there married Martha B. Martin, also a native of that county. They moved west to Iowa when their daughter Susanna (Mrs. Morris) was only nine years old, settling in Fremont county, where Mrs. Wilson died in the year 1877. at the age of sixty-four. A family of seven children was born to Mr. and Mrs. Wilson: James H., Joseph M., Elizabeth, Josiah B., Susanna, Olive and Marietta I. After their daughter Susanna married the parents lived with her, and as previously mentioned Mr. Wilson came with Mr. and Mrs. Morris to California.