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


JOHN J. MORTON.� Though born in the city of Lancaster, England, 
John J. Morton, the editor and proprietor of the Lake County Bee, is never- 
theless of a truly American family. He is a son of Pierre Morton, who 
fought in the Confederate army and who was the author of the Morton 
Bonds. Pierre Morton was a member of the same family as the John Morton 
whose monument now decorates the graveyard near Philadelphia and whose 
name may be found attached to the Declaration of Independence. 

John J. Morton first came to America when about eight years old, and 
returned to England at the age of thirteen. He is a graduate from Trinity 
College in the city of Dublin and also of the Canon Baggott classes of scien- 
tific agriculture in the same city. Taking up the study of medicine, he re- 
ceived a thorough foundation in that profession followed by an extensive 
hospital experience at Bartholomews and other clinics in London. He served 
two years as army surgeon under the Egyptian government in 1896-7, under 
the title of "Morton Bey". He was present at the battle of Omdurrmann, 
which overthrew the Kaliliffa army, and witnessed the surrender of the 
French fort of Fashoda and the pulling down of the French flag there. In 
1898 he returned to America and the next summer proceeded with a number 
of mining people to South Africa. There he was forced to remain during 
the siege of Ladysmith and was twice seriously wounded. He was trans- 
ported back to England on the hospital ship Princess Alay and then returned 
to his home in America, in the year 1900, since which time he has been 
engaged mainly in literary and scientific work, though he served as medical 
expert in Venezuela for some six months. Returning from there to Miami, 
Fla., he took up the literary and development work already begun under 
the interest of H. M. Flagler, the builder of the East Coast Railway in 
Florida. He has also visited in Mexico, where he was connected- with English 
interests. 

Mr. Morton has been variously engaged in literary and newspaper work 
in San Francisco. In conjunction with other railroad men he published the 
Railroad & Steamship Directory in 1906-7, which was probably the most 
comprehensive directory of its kind ever published in the west. After the 
earthquake of 1906 and the panic of 1907 he resumed his editorial work in 
the south until in 1912, when he came to Lakeport. In October, 1913, he 
took over the Lake County Bee, the pioneer newspaper of Lake County and 
the paper which gave to that county the peculiar cognomen of The Valley of 
the Moon. On January 22, 1914, appeared the first number of the Bee 
under Mr. Morton's proprietorship, in which is clearly laid out the aims and 
policies of the paper. 

Mr. Morton was married to Miss Dixie Lee Woods, the accomplished 
daughter of Dr. H. B. Woods, well known as an ex-Confederate soldier.