Ephriam Zebadiah Morrison Sr (1759 - 1806)

Born 5 Jun 1759 in Bucks, Pennsylvania

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 2 Feb 1806 at age 46 in Miami County, Ohio

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Biography

Ephriam Morrison Sr performed Patriotic Service in Pennsylvania in the American Revolution.

Ephriam Morrison Sr is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: P-252604
Rank: unknown

Ephriam Morrison Sr is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A081049.

The following biography of Ephraim was written by one of his sons, also named Ephraim Morrison, and published in History of Dearborn, Ohio and Switzerland Counties, Indiana by Weakley, Harraman & Co. of Chicago in 1885. There really is no better source for a man than one authored by another who knew intimate details of his life, the hardships and loses he endured, and delivered it with much respect and admiration by the following words....

Samuel Morrison my grandfather had one daughter and six sons, five of whom were in the Revolutionary war. My father, Ephraim Morrison, was born in Bucks County, Penn., June 5, 1758, and served as a private soldier in the Revolutionary war, and was wounded in the battle of Brandywine, September 11, 1777, and narrowly escaped the massacre of Paoli, where fifty-three soldiers were massacred in cold blood by the British, September 20, 1777. These fifty-three soldiers were so badly wounded in the battle of Brandywine, that they could not help themselves from being placed in a barn as a hospital near Paoli. The English slipped up a narrow valley in the night and brutally murdered the fifty-three disabled soldiers.
The family, after the Revolutionary war, removed to the west branch of the Susquehanna River and settled just below the mouth of Pine Creek. Here Mercy Morrison (grandmother) died October 30, 1798, and Samuel Morrison (grandfather) died May 5, 1801, aged one hundred years and four months.
Ephraim Morrison was married to Mrs. Nancy Hettick (whose maiden name was Forster) July 1, 1787. Here, Samuel, Jr. and Ephraim Morrison bought land, but failed to pay for it as they were ruined by the depreciation of the continental money, which they had received for their services in the army. They resolved to immigrate to the West and began their journey in 1794 and came as far as Pittsburgh, where they remained during the year 1795, to await the result of the Greenville treaty of August 3, 1795. Ephraim Morrison embarked with several other families in a keel-boat for the Western country, on the 1st of February. It was said to be mild and delightful weather. They tarried a day at Marietta; thence to the Stites and Gano settlement at Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami River, where they tarried two days; thence to Cincinnati, where father met with Joel Williams, whom he knew in Pennsylvania. Next they stopped at North Bend to see Judge John Cleves Symmes; thence to the mouth of the Great Miami River, where there was a station that had been established by Capt. Joseph Hayes and associates, consisting of some eight or ten families. They then proceeded to Tanner's Station (now Petersburg), where they arrived on the 9th of February. Here, father concluded to stop, on account of mother's sickness. The other immigrants went on to the falls of the Ohio. Here was John Tanner, John Watts (both Baptist ministers) a Mr. Voden, Mr. Eads, Daniel Moseby, William Caldwell, a Mr. Kirtly, Mr. Ashby, Maj. Israel Sebree, Capt. William Sebree (brothers of Mrs. Watts); Mr. Alloway lived just about one mile below the station. On the river bank, just below the mouth of Hogan Creek, there stood and Indian hut about sixteen feet square, without floor or roof; father and my eldest brother repaired it and moved into it on Valentine's day (February 14) 1796. Here, it was said, there was three or four acres of ground that had been cleared off by the Indians; about the same number of acres above the creek. Here father met Adam Flake, who told me that he settled on South Hogan Creek in January, 1796, about a month previous to father's settlement. He often told me that he and my father were the two first families that ventured northwest of the Ohio River. There were great numbers of Indians encamped in the vicinity. Among their chiefs were Black Hoof, an old man, Blue Jacket and Capt. Bill, a very large Indian. With the Indians here was the notorious Simon Girty. The Indians were of the tribe called Shawneese. In the latter part of 1796, Blue Jacket borrowed a saddle of father to accompany Simon Girty to Detroit. He came back faithfully and returned the saddle, but Girty never came back, that I know of, though he had a son who was reared mostly in Dearborn County, and went by the name of Simon Peters, and was married in Dearborn County, thence removed to Marion County, where he ended his days, leaving a family. Mr. Adam Flake informed me of the families as they came. In 1798. Ebenezer Foot (step-father of the Peterses and Mahala Butler), David Butler and step sons, John Jonathan and Johiel Buffington, George and Henry Grove, George Glenn, Abner Gray and family, three sons and one daughter, to wit: Abner, John and Moses Gray, who settled just above the mouth of Laughery Creek; Daniel, Robert and James Conaway; Francis and Nicholas Cheek and their families; James, Henry and Amur Bruce and families.
Ephraim Morrison assisted Col. Benjamin Chambers in surveying the public land of Dearborn County; he carrying the hind end of the chain and keeping tally of site trees, brooks, quality of soil and timber. Col. Chambers was a first cousin to Mrs. Ephraim Morrison. The surveys were commenced by Israel Ludlow, October 11, 1798, who began the first meridian line from the center of the mouth of the Great Miami River. The variation of the compass was ascertained to be 5° 10' east of the true north. The surveys were all completed within the years from 1798 to 1805 inclusive. To these surveys there is no base line, the townships number north from the Ohio River, and the ranges are numbered west from the first meridian line.
The land was not yet surveyed, and of course no claims could be perfected. Father sold his improvements below the mouth of Hogan Creek to old Ebenezer Foot, and in 1799, moved about ten miles North into what was afterward Hamilton County, Ohio, for the purpose of taking a contract that was getting out timber and to assist a man by the name of Smith to build a grist mill on Whitewater River. He settled in a neighborhood where Mr. Smith and Mr. Bonham lived. Here he and his family remained one year, and while there he killed a very large buck elk. My eldest brother, who accompanied father in his hunting expeditions, said that he once counted seventeen elks in a drove before they mixed up so that he could not count any more. He said that there were at least thirty elks in the drove. Deer also went in droves. The early settlers made a rule that they would not kill a female elk or deer, therefore only the bucks were killed, the does being left to breed. It was said that the Indians originated this custom. This is why the dressed leather from deer skins is called "'buckskin." Father built a double log-cabin, stable and sheep house on a tract of land he had chosen to be his future home. It was situated on fractional Section 22, Township 5, of Range 1 west. He made his improvements on the west bank of Tanner's Creek, which meandered nearly through the center of the section. Here the Indians had cleared up some ten or twelve acres of land, and on one edge of it stood a mound of mussel or clam shells eight feet high. Blue Jacket told my father, in the presence of my eldest brother, that the Indians made a feast of roasted clams every twelve moons, in remembrance of the great Manitou, who ruled the fishes and the clams.
At this place my father and brothers cleared up and put under fence about thirty acres of land. Our sheep had to be housed every night on account of the wolves. A bear cam into our door yard and took a hog that would weigh fifty pounds, stood on it's hind legs squeezing the hog in it's hug and biting it. On hearing the hog squeal father took down his rifle and shot a the bear killing it.
The land sales took place at Cincinnati. April, 1801, and father attended them. Fractional Section 22 contained 511.81 acres, and father had money enough to enter half of it, 255.90 acres, which lay on the west side of the creek, on which were all his improvements, the creek divided it about equally. Gen. James Finley, the land officer, told father that the treasury board had ordered him to sell nothing less than a whole section, and that all fractional sections must be sold with the whole section to the rear of and adjoining them. Section 21 and fractional Sections 22 and 23 containing in all 1,183.77 acres by the maps, and 1,197.22 acres by the tract books (true contents 1,181.13 acres), at $2 per acre amounted to 52,307.54. The whole 1,183.77 acres was bid off by Charles Wilkins, who paid on it $598.61. Father returned home with a broken and subdued spirit, to think that all of his labor and that of his sons was lost. That year (1801) they raised an excellent crop of corn, a patch of flax and a patch of cotton. Wilkins charged father for the rent of his own improvements. Father then resolved to leave the Territory as soon as he could make arrangements and hear from his brother Samuel, who had settled somewhere in Ohio. Father was forced to pay rent on his own improvements and support a family of nine persons, when all they ate or wore had to be made within the family circle. Each family then had to live as an independent nation of people. They carded, wove, and spun their own wool and cotton, dressed, spun and wove their linen; tanned and made their own leather and shoes; dressed and made their own buckskin, which was used much for pantaloons, moccasins and sack coats for boys and men. Mother died December 18, 1803, leaving father with a family of six children to provide and care for. In the summer of 1804, father and my two eldest brothers go out the timber and built the first jail in Lawrenceburgh. It was built from logs a foot square and notched at the corners, so that the logs fit close together; the two floor, above and below, were built with logs one-foot square and close together. Two windows, one on each side of the door; each window was one foot perpendicular by two foot horizontal, each filled with iron gratings. The door was made of three-inch oak plank, the battens were of bar iron, three inches broad by one inch thick, which also formed a part of the hinges.
On the organization of Dearborn County, March 7, 1803, Gov. William Henry Harrison offered to Ephraim Morrison the appointment of judge of the court of general quarter sessions of the peace and common pleas, which said position he declined, because he had lost his land and home. In November, 1804, father made a sale and sold all his loose property, including cattle, sheep and hogs, reserving a yoke of oxen, wagon and mare, and began his journey to Ohio December 1, of that year. On the third day we reached Hamilton, and on the sixth Dayton, and on the 7th of December, our new home on Mad River, in Clark County, Ohio. This home we occupied one year, one month and twenty-six days, when father died (February 2, A. D. 1806), of an injury received at a house raising. He was five feet ten inches in height, weight 175 pounds, brown hair and blue eyes. He never aspired to office, or to be a leader in politics or religion, though a member of the Presbyterian Church; he was a man of worth and skill, and should not be forgotten, or pass into oblivion unnoticed. For a life of modest toil and persevering industry in the period he lived in, was of great value to the country; besides his service in the Revolutionary war, for naught, as the continental money, with which he was paid proved worthless.
Ephraim Morrison and sons cleared up and put under cultivation sixty acres of land. built two good double log-cabins, made plows, looms with their equipments, hand-mills, etc., during their eight years residence in Dearborn County. He left the county because he had to be a tenant on his own labor and improvements, the United States Government requiring him to pay $2 per acre for 1,183.77 acres or none, when it sold land east of the Great Miami to Judge John Cleves Symmes for 66 2/3 cents per acre, and at the same time agreeing with him to receive soldier warrants, which were selling at 5 shillings on the pound, for the pay of one entire range of townships, extending from the Great to the Little Miami River, amounting to 80,640 acres and costing $13,440. Father was a remarkably stout and strong man. Nicholas Check told me that father carried on his shoulders 800 bushels of corn (in the ear) and put it into a keel boat in one day. Cheek said that they had two bed ticks that would hold about six bushels of corn each. They filled one, Cheek and another man helping to put it on father's shoulders, who then carried it to the boat where two other men took and emptied it, giving father the empty bed tick and he took it to Cheek and partner who had another bed tick filled, and they put it on father's shoulders, who took it to the boat, and so on until the boat was loaded.
Among other things, Ephraim Morrison was a great hunter. Mr. Isaac Mills staid one winter with him, and the two men did nothing but hunt and kill bears for their skins. It was said that they killed twenty bears besides keeping the family in deer meat. There was a dear lick not far from the mouth of Hogan Creek where father would go whenever it was necessary to supply the family with meat. At one time when he went to the lick, he saw a large panther crouched on a leaning tree, that bent over the lick, watching also for deer. He did not see it until he was too close to risk a shot, he thought if he did not kill it, in a couple of bounds it would be upon him. He looked it in the face, slowly moving backward, until he felt himself safe in scaring it away without risking a shot, which he did by breaking a limb and throwing toward it, it leaped off and ran away. On the side of the hill just below the first little brook below Aurora, father shot a bear, it fell down, kicked and at last lay still, he reloaded his gun, went up to the bear and gave it a poke with his gun; the bear sprang to i's feet and pursued him for some distance; after giving up the pursuit he wheeled and gave it a second shot, down it tumbled, kicking and quivering as before; thinking it dead for certain this time he punched it again, when it sprang to it's feet and gave him a much closer chase than it had before, he was obliged to drop his gun and save himself by running across a deep ravine on a slim pole that lay over it. He succeeded in getting around to his gun and by a third shot killed the bear.
Gen. James Dill, clerk of the court in Dearborn County, told me that my father, Ephraim Morrison, saved his life once, with that of three others. I asked him how. He replied that Mr. Morrison was bringing a pirogue load of stone from the Kentucky shore, there were in the pirogue with him only three men as hands, who could swim: myself and three others as passengers, who could not swim. As we left the Kentucky shore the wind arose and by the time we reached the middle of the river the wind became a gale, the pirogue began to fill with water, those that could swim, wanted to leave the pirogue and let those who could not swim drown. But Mr. Morrison took command and would not allow any to leave, and commanded that every man should apply himself to the oars with all his might, and by so doing they could run the pirogue into shallow water before it would sink. They did as he commanded, and never did men labor and row for life as they did. We reached shoal water before sinking, where the water was but three feet deep. We all had to wade out with grateful hearts that we were saved.

Military Service

Ephraim Morrison is a D.A.R qualifying ancestor because he paid Supply Tax in 1782.

note: The SAR records have no regiment information.

Sources

1. ↑ [1] History of Dearborn, Ohio and Switzerland Counties, Indiana. Chicago : Weakley, Harraman & Co., 1885. p. 847-852.

• [2] 29 November 1804 Marriage of Ephraim Morrison to Letty Gilson. Greene Co., OH. Marriage records 1803-1840 vol A, p. 4.
• [3] Will of Ephraim Morrison dated 13 Jan 1806. Submitted 6 May 1806. Rec. 20 May 1806 (see note in margin). Champaign Co., OH Will Record Book A (1808-1819), p. 4-5.
• Kraybill, Spencer L. Pennsylvania's Pine Creek Valley and Pioneer Families. Gateway Press, Inc. (Baltimore, MD : 1991) pg 983 M19
• family Bible