John Morton (1730 - 1796)

Born 9 Feb 1730 in Henrico, Virginia

Ancestors

Husband of Mary Elizabeth Ellen (Anderson) Morton — married 18 May 1750 in Amelia County, Virginia

Descendants

Died 1 Dec 1796 at age 66 in Clinch Mountain, Virginia, United States

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Biography

Capt. John Morton served with 4th Virginia Regiment (1776), Continental Army during the American Revolution.

DAR Ancestor #: A081821

List of John Morton's children from Revolutionary War Bounty Warrant

In 1838 John Morton's heirs applied to the Virginia legislature for a bounty based upon his service in the Revolutionary War. One of the documents included a list of his children. ^[1]

List of John Morton's children from Carter Thompson Family Bible

A list of the children of John Morton and Mary Elisabeth Ellen Anderson from Carter Thompson's family Bible was published in 1961 by the Louisiana Genealogical and historical Society. ^[2]

French and Indian War Service

John Morton, gent, who was in the late war between Great Britain and France, a Lieutenant in the Company of Volunteers, by order from Governor Dinwiddie, joined Major Andrew Lewis' Detachment from the Virginia Regiment of Regulars, raised in the then Colony, now Commonwealth, came into Court and made oath that he was an inhabitant of Virginia, and that he served in the office aforesaid, and that this is the first time of his making claim to lands under the King of Great Britain's Proclamation of Oct. 1763, or obtaining a certificate therefor and that during his continuance in service, he was governed by articles of War which govern regular soldiers, and received pay as of lieutenant of regulars. Ordered, that the same be certified.^[3]

Revolutionary War Service

Capt. John Morton was a deputy commissioner of the Continental Army under General John Pierce. He formed his own militia at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Eight of his sons were members of his company. It was known as Captain John Morton's Company of Regulars, Fourth Virginia 1776.^[4]

Morton's Company left Prince Edward Courthouse in March 1776, for Suffolk. There and at Portsmouth it was engaged in skirmishes with Lord Dunmore's forces. After Dunmore left Virginia waters in September 1776, the Fourth Virginia Regiment went by water to the head of the Elk (in Maryland) and thence marched through Philadelphia and Newark to New Brunswick, NJ, where it joined George Washington's army after its retreat from Fort Washington. The regiment was in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine and Germantown and was at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778.^[4]

Captain John Morton received 6,700 acres of land from the Commonwealth of Virginia for his Revolutionary War service. All of the land was located in old Fayette County, Kentucky.^[4]

See the Muster Roll of Captain John Morton's Company of Prince Edward Militia. June 28, 1781^[5]

See affadavits of service in the Revolutionary War from fellow patriots serving with John Morton.^[6]

Captain Morton was wounded in The Battle of Guilford Court House.^[7]

Captain John Morton was captured at the Battle of Blue Licks under Capt. Daniel Boone asks for relief in obtaining a Treasury Land Warrant.^[8]

Hampden-Sydney College

John Morton was a charter trustee of Hampden-Sydney College, which is located in the town of Hampden-Sydney, Prince Edward County. The charter trustees of the college included James Madison and Patrick Henry. Originally chartered in 1775 as Prince Edward Academy, Hampden-Sydney College was sponsored by the Hanover Presbytery and to this day maintains its affiliation with the Presbyterian church. Morton was a trustee until his death in 1796. ^[9]

The survival of the college in its early years was made problematic by the hardships which accompanied the Revolutionary war. According to George Craghead, an early student at Hampden-Sydney, John Morton was one of three men who helped sustain the school during this period:

"The Academy was likely to have been discontinued [in 1777], but Mr. Nathaniel Venable, Mr. James Allen, senr., and I believe Captain John Morton united and agreed to furnish provisions for twelve months, and employed a Mr. Young with his family, to attend to the cooking, etc. for the sum of 20 pounds only per student: they lost very considerably on account of the depreciation of paper money." ^[10]

In addition to assisting in the financial survival of Hampden-Sydney with his personal funds in 1777, that year John Morton served on a committee which organized a lottery to obtain funding for "sufficient additional buildings for the reception and entertainment of a great number of students who wish to be admitted. ^[11]

Morton Hall

Samuel Packwood Morton, a great-great grandson of Captain John Morton, gave Hampden-Sydney College $75,000 in 1935 to fund the construction of Morton Hall in honor of his ancestor.^[12][4]

Hampden-Sydney President J. D. Eggleston gave a speech at the college's 1936 commencement celebration in honor of John Morton and Samuel P. Morton: ^[13]

About 1750, John Morton, then a lad of twenty, came up from the Shire of Henrico in the Colony of Virginia and settled on Buffalo River, in that part of Amelia which in 1754 became Prince Edward County. In preparation for his marriage, he built "Morton Hall," which was his seat until his death.

Coming under the influence of the brilliant Samuel Davies, the great Presbyterian divine, in 1755 he was one of the organizers of, and united with, Old Cumberland church; and he was soon made a ruling elder. Only a few years later he was appointed by the Governor of Virginia as a Justice of the Court of his County. Leading the life of a planter, he was active in his Church and active in civic life.

At that time this section of Virginia was pioneer country, and the citizens of this section had to do their part in bearing the brunt of the attacks of the French and Indians against the Virginia colonists. John Morton enlisted as a soldier in the French and Indian War. In 1763, he was made Captain of Militia, and in 1774 he enlisted as an officer under General Andrew Lewis, and marched with him to the Ohio country in the attempt to break the backbone of the Indian assaults against the settlers. He was an active participant in the Battle of the Great Kanawha, known also as the Battle of Point Pleasant.

Our historians have been so busy writing about the struggle for civic and religious rights; about Boston tea parties; about the meaning of the Battle of Lexington; about fiery speeches made by Samuel Adams and Otis, and Patrick Henry; about strategic battles of the War of the Revolution — that they have permitted the importance of the border warfares to recede into the background; and they have almost wholly neglected the vital importance, the strategic meaning, of the Battle of the Great Kanawha in 1774.

Tyler says that, "By the victory of the Great Kanawha, the settlers who poured into Kentucky and Tennessee were effectually relieved from all immediate peril from the Indians of the Northwest. It almost amounted to the winning of the West, for had it not been possible to occupy this region during the early years of the Revolutionary War, it is not improbable that the Treaty of 1783 might have fixed the western boundary of the United States at the Alleghanies instead of the Mississippi."

Alexander Withers in his "Chronicles of Border Warfare" says that the Battle of the Great Kanawha was virtually the first in the series of those brilliant achievements which burst the bonds of British tyranny; and that the blood of Virginia, there nobly shed, was the first blood spilled in the sacred cause of American liberty.

Lyman C. Draper, the historian, a native of New York, endorsed this statement.

One would suppose that this would have been a sufficient sacrifice for John Morton to offer to his country, but he raised a company and as Captain engaged in the War of the Revolution. Six of his sons enlisted.

In 1775, he became one of the founders of Hampden-Sydney College, and was an active trustee.

Today, in a few hundred yards of this church, a beautiful and imposing recitation hall, to be known as Morton Hall, is being erected in memory of Captain John Morton. What more beautiful and appropriate memorial could be erected to this great citizen of our county, one of the founders of Hampden-Sydney? This has been made possible by the generous gift of Mr. S. P. Morton, Jr., who, in a most gracious manner, has paid this tribute to his ancestor.

Morton House

The Morton house, called Morton Hall, was torn down in 2001. It was to the North of the Hampden-Sydney College lands.^{[4] [14]}

Issue

• Charles Morton (1752- before 1796)
• Elizabeth "Betsy" Morton Woodson (1754-1845)
• Major James Morton (1756-1848)
• Captain Hezekiah Morton (1757-1831)
• Captain Benjamin Morton (1760-1838)
• Jacob Morton (1761- before 8 August 1833)
• Josiah Morton (1763-1838)
• Nathaniel Morton (1765-1808)
• Mary Morton Fuqua (1766-1816)
• Nancy Morton Thompson (1768-1816)
• Sally Morton Fuqua (1770)
• John Archer Morton (1772-1880)
• Richard Morton (1776- before 8 August 1833)
• Obediah Morton (1778-1848)
• Patty Morton (1780-1834)

Sources

1. ↑ Library of Virginia. Revolutionary War Bounty Warrants Records. http://image.lva.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/drawer?retrieve_image=Revolution&type=rw&reel=18&start=596&end=630
2. ↑ Carter Thompson Family Bible Records. Be it known and remembered: Bible records. Louisiana Genealogical & Historical Society (Baton Rouge, Louisiana). Baton Rouge, Louisiana : Louisiana Genealogical & Historical Society, 1960-1967, 1992. Vol. 2, pages 208-210. See image: https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Morton-514-7
3. ↑ Prince Edward County Deed Book 6 page 66
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4} Find a Grave
5. ↑ Genealogy Trails History Group - Prince Edward County Militia #[1]
6. ↑ Affadavits #[2]
7. ↑ The American Revolution in North Carolina #[3]
8. ↑ Library of Virginia, Digital Collection, State Archives, State Archives Collections, Legistative Petitions Digital Collections, Kentucky Counties - record #10 of 15[4]
9. ↑ Alfred J. Morrison. The College of Hampden-Sidney. Calendar of Board Minutes, 1776-1876.
10. ↑ William Henry Foote, Sketches of Virginia, p. 401
11. ↑ Purdie's Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, Virginia). July 4, 1777, page 8. see image: https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Morton-514-1
12. ↑ College of Hampden Sidney; dictionary of biography, 1776-1825. [5]
13. ↑ The Record of the Hampden-Sydney Alumni Association July, 1936.
14. ↑ Thompson, Barney, (1995) The Thompson Family of Prince Edward County, Virginia, Butler and Trigg Counties, Kentucky, and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana: The Descendants of Thomas Thompson, 1740-1810. http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~bhusler/genealogy/Bill/Surname_Sources/Thompson/~barneyt/book.htm

See Also

1. The Morton Patriarchs of Virginia. Daniel Morton. pg 314-15
2. Lineage Book- National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Daughters of the American Revolution. 1922. pg 272
3. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Pedigree Resource File," database, FamilySearch [6] entry for Capt. John /Morton/.

Acknowledgements

1. This person was created through the import of indygrandma.ged on 02 January 2011.