Robert Morris

                Robert Morris, a signer of three important American documents (the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States), was born on January 20, 1734, in Liverpool, England.  His parents were Robert Morris, Sr. and Elizabeth Murphet.  Robert, the son, immigrated to Oxford, Maryland, at 13 years of age in order to live with his father who was a tobacco factor.  His father provided a tutor for him, but Robert quickly learned everything his teacher could teach him.  His father then sent him to Philadelphia to study.

                Robert lived with a family friend, Charles Greenway, who arranged for him to become an apprentice at the shipping and banking firm of the Philadelphia merchant (and then mayor) Charles Willing.  Robert’s father died a year later after being hit by the wadding of a ship’s gun that was fired in his honor.  Charles Willing died in 1754, and his son Thomas Willing made Robert his partner at the age of 24 years.  They established the prominent shipping-banking firm of Willing, Morris & Co. on May 1, 1757.  The partnership lasted until about 1779.

                On March 2, 1769, Robert married Mary White; Robert was 35, and Mary was 20.  They became the parents of five sons and two daughters.  Mary came from a prominent Maryland family; her brother was the well-known Anglican Bishop William White.  Bishop White ran two churches in Philadelphia – St. Peter’s Church on Pine Street and Christ Church on Second Street, and Robert worshipped at both of them.  Robert was an active member and supporter of this Anglican Church for his entire life.  Robert and Bishop White are both buried at Christ Church, Philadelphia in the churchyard located at Second and Market.  These churches had good reputations and locations and drew a number of notable members of the Continental Congress, including George Washington.

                Morris became active in politics when he was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly.  He later became the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety.  He was selected to be a delegate to the Second Continental Congress where he served as chairman of the “Secret Committee of Trade” and as a member of the Committee of Correspondence.  He served from 1781 to 1784 as the powerful Superintendent of Finance, managing the economy of the fledgling United States.  He was the central civilian in the government and stood next to George Washington as “the most powerful man in America.”  He was so successful in administering the funds that he became known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”  As the Agent of Marine, he controlled the Continental Navy but received no pay from the position.

                Robert Morris was a wealthy man and used much of his own money to fund the war.  He was one of Pennsylvania’s original pair of U.S. Senators and served from 1789 to 1795.  Unwise land speculation right before the Panic of 1796-1797 caused his bankruptcy in 1798, and he sat in debtors’ prison for several years.  Part of the reason that the U.S. Congress passed its first bankruptcy legislation, the temporary Bankruptcy Act of 1800, was to get Morris out of prison.  After his release from prison and suffering from bad health, he retired to a quiet and private life in a modest Philadelphia home where he passed away on either May 8 or May 9, 1806.  He was survived by his wife who supported him throughout his misfortune.  He is buried in the family vault of Bishop William White, his brother-in-law, at Christ Church.  A plaque installed later reads:  “ROBERT MORRIS signer of the Constitution of the United States of America.  Deputy from Pennsylvania to Federal Constitutional Convention May 25, 1787 – September 17, 1787.  Erected by the Pennsylvania Constitution Commemorative Committee.”

                Morris left a great legacy.  His work, “On Public Credit” submitted during the Revolution, to the Continental Congress in 1781, supplied the basis for Hamilton’s economic plan submitted in 1790 under the title First Report on the Public Credit.  Morris laid out a national funding plan but its reliance on direct taxation, including a head tax on slaves, prevented his gaining support for it.  Hamilton added to the plan as Secretary of Treasury.  Along with Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, Morris is considered one of the key founders of the financial system in the United States.

                The portrait of Morris appeared on US $1000 notes from 1862 to 1863 and on the $10 Silver Certificates from 1878 to 1880.  Morris and Roger Sherman were the only two people to sign all three significant founding documents of the United States – the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution.    Morris is the only signer of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, or the Articles of Confederation (and he signed all three) whose house is the site of a national memorial in a National Park, but whose life and work are not interpreted.

                The dollar sign (“$”) was in common use among private merchants during the middle of the 18^th century.  It referred to the two columns draped with scrolls on the Spanish milled dollar, which predated the US dollar.  Morris was the first to use that symbol in official documents and in official communications with Oliver Pollock.  The US dollar was based on the Spanish milled dollar when, in the Coinage Act of 1792, the first Mint Act, its value was “fixed” (per the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 where power is given to the United States Congress “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”) as being “of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver.”

                The following institutions were named in honor of Robert Morris:  Robert Morris University, Pennsylvania; Robert Morris University (Illinois); Robert Morris Elementary School, Batavia, New York; Robert Morris Elementary School #27, Scranton, Pennsylvania; Robert Morris Elementary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Robert Morris School, South Bound Brook, New Jersey.  Mount Morris, New York, location of a large flood control dam on the Genesee River, was named in his honor.  A number of ships in the United States Navy and the United States Coast Guard have been named USS Morris or USRC Morris in his honor.  A small town, Morrisville, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor and has a statue of him in the town square.

Mary White Morris

Mary White was born on April 13, 1749, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest child of Thomas and Esther White. She married Robert Morris, the future signer of the Declaration of Independence and great financier of the Revolutionary War, on March 2, 1769.

Mary was "well educated and carefully trained in the accomplishments of her day." She was "prominent in Philadelphia society" even before she married Morris, "one of the most prominent merchants of the day" at age 35. Mary and Robert became parents of five children, three sons and two daughters.

Mrs. Morris was subjected to many hardships during the Revolutionary War. With the British Army approaching Philadelphia near the end of 1776, Congress moved to Baltimore. Mr. Morris stayed in Philadelphia but sent his wife to Baltimore to stay with her step-sister along with her parents for several months.

After Mary received news of a victory at Trenton, she wrote the following letter to her husband on December 30, 1776: "… We had been for many days impatiently wishing for a letter from you, as the news we hear from any other quarter is not to be depended upon; but when the welcome one arrived, which brought those glad tidings, it more than compensated for what our unfortunate circumstances prepared our minds to expect. … but I hope, indeed, the tide is turned, and that our great Washington will have the success his virtues deserve, and rout the impious army who, from no other principle but that of enslaving this once happy country, have prosecuted this Cruell war, …"

In March 1777, Mrs. Morris returned to her home in Philadelphia. Apparently, Mary's health was damaged by the separation from her husband plus the worries and anxieties of war for she wrote to her mother, "… everybody exclaims at my thinness; several of my acquaintances … declared there was very little traces of my former self. …" In a postscript to this letter, she added that her brother Billy had been appointed to be the Chaplain in Congress. Billy was the "future eminent prelate and father of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country, Bishop William White."

Mary was not long in her home when fears of the approach of the British Army made it necessary to move again. Even though she began packing household future, etc. on April 14, 1777, two weeks later she wrote that she was still in Philadelphia and was preparing to send her best furniture, any extra linen, and supplies of all sorts in order to flee quickly if necessary. With the near approach of the British Army in September, 1777, Congress moved from Philadelphia to Lancaster and then to York. Mr. and Mrs. Morris moved to their country home, the Hills, about the same time and stayed until the summer of 1778 when Sir Henry Clinton left the city. Congress returned to Philadelphia on July 2, 1778, for Philadelphia was under the command of Benedict Arnold. During this time there were many social events where military gentlemen, including General Arnold, began to keep company with Tory ladies.

Mrs. Morris lost her father in September 1779. In early 1781, Robert was appointed to be Superintendent of Finance - Treasury Secretary. He and his wife became very prominent because of the power of his position as well as their own wealth and social position. They entertained many distinguished men, including numerous foreigners. One of these foreigners was a French nobleman from whom Robert Morris borrowed twenty thousand pounds on his personal credit. He sent this money to General Washington, who used the money to beat Cornwallis at Yorktown and to basically end the war.

Mr. and Mrs. Morris hosted George Washington, Count de Rochambeau and other foreign and American officers when they traveled through Philadelphia on their way to join LaFayette near Yorktown.

Robert and Mary sent their two oldest sons to Europe to be educated in the fall of 1781. The boys were only 12 and 10 years old.

In late May 1887, the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution, and George Washington stayed with the Morris family while the Founders were meeting. Mr. Morris was a member of the convention, and he nominated General Washington to preside over the proceedings. Robert and Mary Morris remained close friends with George and Martha Washington.

When Washington became President, he asked Morris to be Secretary of the Treasury. Morris declined the offer but recommended Alexander Hamilton whom Washington appointed to the position.

When settlers did not flock to the wild lands purchased by Robert, his fortune was wrecked. He was arrested on February 15, 1798, and put in debtor's prison for three and a half years before being released in October 1801. One of their sons died the same month. Mary and her daughter Maria visited Robert in prison day after day even though malignant fever raged through the area.

Gouverneur Morris, a good friend but not a relative, came to Mary's aid. He compelled the Holland Land Company, who had the title to Robert's three million three hundred thousand acres to pay Mary an annuity of $1500.00 for the rest of her life.

Robert was a "broken-down old man" when he was released from prison, and he died about five years later in 1806. Mary moved to a different home after his death where she lived for the rest of her life.

When General La Fayette made his famous tour through the country in 1824, he made his first private visit in the city to Mrs. Morris. He had not seen her for thirty-seven years, but he recognized her at her window as he passed her house earlier in the afternoon on September 29. At his personal request, Mary attended a grand Civic Ball given in his honor on October 5. Mary was sixty-seven years old at the time and was described as being "tall, graceful, and commanding, with a stately dignity of manner."

Facts and quotes are from Wives of the Signers: The women behind the Declaration of Independence, pp. 155-169.

Robert Morris

Robert Morris, one of the greatest of patriots and future signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in January 1733 in Lancashire, England. His father was a Liverpool merchant who engaged extensively in trading with the American colonists. His father moved to America when Robert was a very young child, leaving him in the care of his grandmother and moved to America. He settled on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay in a place called Oxford. Robert was thirteen years old when his father finally brought him to America.

Robert went to school in Philadelphia, but he apparently knew nearly as much as his teacher. At fifteen years of age he started working in a counting room for one of the leading merchants in Philadelphia, Mr. Charles Willing. He became an orphan about this same time when his father passed away from an infection on his arm. He died several days after being hit by the "wad" fired from one of the guns on one of his ships. I found no mention of his mother.
Mr. Willing liked Robert and "gave him every advantage his business afforded." By the time Mr. Willing passed away, Robert had become a merchant. He started a mercantile business with a Mr. Thomas Willing in 1754, and the firm soon became very successful and prosperous. Even though the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and non-importation agreements caused them to lose much business, they "cheerfully" supported the regulations and did everything they could to convince other merchants to do the same.

Robert married Mary White of Pennsylvania in 1769. They were married and had "uninterrupted domestic happiness" for 37 years before his death.

The British attack at Lexington caused great indignation among the colonists, and "extinguished all hope of reconciliation" with England. Robert then became involved in public affairs, and he was elected by the Pennsylvania legislature as a delegate to the General Congress in November 1775. His talents as a businessman were quickly recognized. He became a member of a "secret committee" (responsible for managing the financial affairs of the government) as well as a "committee to devise ways and means for providing a naval armament." He was assigned by Congress in the spring of 1776 to "negotiate bills of exchange, and to take other measures to procure money for the Government."

He was elected for a second term in Congress on July 18, 1776, fourteen days after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and he signed the document on August 2, 1776. He continued to labor diligently in Congress with the confidence that the patriots would finally achieve peace and independence. He was so confident in the final victory that he personally loaned $10,000.00 to General George Washington after he and his half-starved, half-naked soldiers retreated across New Jersey in late 1776. Robert financial support helped Washington to recruit and pay the soldiers who later crossed the Delaware River and achieved victory in the battle at Trenton.

There were numerous other times when the government was unable to procure finances that Robert arranged for the money on his own good name and character and then applied the money for public benefit. In the darkest period of the war in 1781, Robert joined with other citizens to organize a new bank in Philadelphia. The purpose of the new bank was to issue paper money that the public could accept with confidence because the "government bills were becoming almost worthless." The plan had the desired effect and greatly helped the cause of liberty.
During that same year, Congress convinced Robert to accept an appointment to be general financial agent of the United States. Today we call the position the Secretary of the Treasury. Robert was probably the only man in country who had the business talents and extensive ability to get credit, either domestic or foreign. Congress recognized his great abilities and urgently solicited his help. Congress at the time could not obtain loans for even one thousand dollars, but Robert could get loans on his own credit for tens of thousands. The Bank of North America became a successful operation, and the patriotic service of Robert Morris probably kept the Continental Army in business.

Robert was able to raise great amounts of money to support the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Because of his abilities, he became known as "the financier of the American Revolution." In fact, it has been stated that: "If it were not demonstrable by official records, posterity would hardly be made to believe that the campaign of 1781, which resulted in the capture of Cornwallis, and virtually closed the Revolutionary War, was sustained wholly on the credit of an individual merchant." It is stated that George Washington had only to tell Robert Morris how much money he needed, and Morris raised the money on his own responsibility.

After the Revolutionary War was over and peace established, Robert served two terms in the legislature of Pennsylvania. He attended almost every session of the Constitutional Congress of 1787 but played a minor part there. He was one of only six people who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Robert was elected as a Senator for Pennsylvania to the first meeting of Congress under the new government. When President George Washington was selecting members of his Cabinet, he was very anxious to have Robert as the Secretary of the Treasury, but Morris declined. When Washington asked for suggestions for the position, Morris immediately mentioned Alexander Hamilton.

Morris served another term in the U.S. Senate and then retired from public life. By the time he left the Senate, he had invested heavily in the unsettled land throughout the new nation. His credit however collapsed by the late 1790's, and he was sent to debtor's prison in 1798. He was released from prison in 1801 and spent his remaining years in poverty. His financial situation bothered him a great deal. He also suffered from asthma. He died on May 8, 1806 at age 72.

Facts are from Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, pp. 93-98, and World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 13, p. 817. Quotes are from Signers.