Robert Morris

The Robert Morris Exhibit

Robert Morris was the poor boy from Liverpool who in twelve years put the stamp of his personality and talent indelibly on Oxford. It was no coincidence that the years Morris spent there, from 1738 to his death in 1750, were also the years of Oxford’s greatest prosperity; his ability and aggressiveness in large measure made them so. And it was also no coincidence, although many factors were involved, that almost immediately after Morris died Oxford began its slow decline into the oblivion which would engulf it in the post-Revolutionary years.

Captain Jeremiah Banning, a close friend of Morris, described his life and character:

He gave birth to the inspection law on tobacco –and carried it, though opposed by a powerful party. He was the first who introduced the mode of keeping accounts in money, instead of so many pounds of tobacco, so many yards, so many gallons, so many pounds &c, as was formerly the case. He was a steady, sincere & warm friend.

The Life of Robert Morris:

Records in Liverpool indicate that Robert Morris, Sr., was born there April 19, 1711, and baptized April 23 at the Parish Church of St. Peter. His parents were Andrew Morris, a mariner or “saylor,” and his wife Maudlin (a simplified spelling of Magdalene). By one account Andrew Morris, his father, was employed by Cunliffe as a mariner and made voyages to the Chesapeake, principally to Virginia, in the 1720s. At some point in the 1720s, Robert was apprenticed as a possible nail-maker. From then on until he appeared at Talbot County Court House in June, 1738, to register as Foster Cunliffe’s attorney and factor, nothing whatever is known of Morris’s career. When he was first employed by Cunliffe, what positions he held, and how he happened to be chosen for the important assignment as factor at Oxford are all blank in the record.

One thing is known from this period, however: early in 1735, his name appeared as father of a boy, Robert, born to Elizabeth Murphey January 20 and christened at St. George’s Church. A diligent search by a professional genealogist has failed to turn up any record of marriage between Elizabeth Murphey and Robert Morris. In his will, written in 1749, Morris did not refer to the boy as his son, or simply as Robert Morris, Jr. Instead he described him as “a youth now living in Philadelphia…known there by the name of Robert Morris, Junior.” However, Morris made no secret of his paternity, and made Robert, Jr., his principal heir.

As soon as he was settled at Oxford in 1738, Morris had lost no time making his presence felt throughout the Chesapeake. Before his arrival Foster Cunliffe’s activities had been centered principally in tidewater Virginia; but under Morris’s leadership that was soon changed. The Cunliffe firm turned its attention almost entirely to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It was owner or part owner of twenty-six ships plying all the trade routes of the Atlantic, voyaging principally from Britain to Africa, to the West Indies to the Chesapeake and back again. In terms of the impact on Oxford and the middle Eastern Shore, it set the standard by which all rivals were measured.

Morris’s “mercantile genius” easily maintained Cunliffe’s lead and Oxford’s position of dominance as the Eastern Shore’s principal port town.

His living quarters, in a house owned or leased by Foster Cunliffe supposedly at the site where the Robert Morris Inn now stands (and of which few remnants are said to be incorporated in the present inn), were luxurious for the place and time. In dress and personal appearance, Morris was something of a dandy. He went in for fancy vests and carried a gold watch with “girdle” and chain.

Morris’s role of in putting through the tobacco inspection law of 1747 and in changing over to cash accounting instead of tobacco may have been overstated by Banning. But if Morris did not exactly invent money accounting, he certainly helped to popularize it; and if he was not solely responsible for the inspection law, he was certainly one of its most vocal supporters. While the inspection law was still under debate he took the lead in setting up a private inspection system under which the merchants hired their own inspectors to grade all tobacco offered for sale and reject any containing “trash.” Sometimes entire crops were rejected, with ruinous loses to the planters.

While he was thus furthering the interests of his employers, Morris was building up a mercantile operation of his own throughout the 1740s. By 1750 his private business had grown to large proportions. His ledgers reveal that he had accounts with fourteen British merchants, twenty-three Marylanders, five in Philadelphia, two in New Castle, Delaware, one in Marblehead, Massachusetts, one in the West Indies, one in Antigua, and one in Madeira, for a total of forty-eight. To an extent these operations represented a conflict of interest, since they competed  with Cunliffe’s own stores for trade with the same planters, and there is some question whether the Cunliffes in Liverpool were aware of them.

Some of Morris’s profits went into clothes, books, silver, and good living but he invested part of it in slaves and real estate. Talbot land records show that on September 13, 1746, he purchased a 300-acre farm called Rich Range, at the head of Island Creek. The location was off of what is now Alms House Road, near the hamlet that became known as Hole-in-the-wall and is now called Hambleton. With the farm Morris took possession of four black slaves, a number of livestock, and furnishings. The price for all of this, stated partly in tobacco and partly in current money of Maryland, was 7,581 pounds of tobacco and £86/3 in cash.

In July 6 of 1750, Morris boarded the Cunliffe ship London Merchant to welcome Captain Samuel Matthews and congratulate him, as was custom, on having completed a successful voyage. The ships guns were to be fired in Morris’s honor as he returned to shore. But something happened; for reasons never explained, instead of waiting until the boat was well clear, Captain Matthews gave the signal to fire when it was still alongside he ship and only about twenty yards away. The cannon boomed, and wadding from the guns whizzed out over the water. One piece of wadding struck Morris in the right arm, smashing the bone above the elbow and causing an ugly wound.

Morris died on July 12 due to complications from the wound. He was just three months past his thirty-ninth birthday.

After the funeral it was time to begin the not-so-simple task of carrying out the provisions of Morris’s four-page will. Morris was as generous in death as he had been in life. His will is a fascinating document even today, revealing much about the precision of Morris’s thinking as well as his thoughtfulness towards his friends.

The Will of Robert Morris

He asked that mourning rings, paid for by his estate, be given to no less than twenty-seven persons, and specifically requested his executors to see that they were made and sent off to the recipients “as soon after my Decease as they can.” Cash bequests totaled £815 to fifteen persons, plus a lump sum of £50 to be distributed to the poor of St. Peter’s Parish.

The final task he assigned to his executors was a melancholy one. If he died in Maryland, he said, they were to see him buried in St. Peter’s churchyard. This they did; and the stone, the largest in the churchyard, covered the site of Morris’s grave for many years. Eventually Old Whitemarsh burned and crumbled into ruins, and the stone began to crumble away also.

Since then it has been restored with what was believed to have been its original wording, and lies in the churchyard as a memorial. It reads:

In Memory of
Robert Morris, a Native of Liverpool
In Great Britain
Late Merchant at Oxford
In this Province

Punctual Integrity influenced his Dealings
Principles of Honour governed his Actions:
With an uncommon degree of sincerity
He despised artifice and dissimulation.
His Friendship was firm, Candid and valuable.
His Charity frequent, Secret and well adapted.
His Zeal for the Publick Good Active and Useful.
His Hospitality was enhanced by his Conversation
Seasoned with cheerful wit and Sound Judgement.

A salute from the Cannon of a Ship
The wad fracturing his arm
Was the Signal by which he departed
Greatly lamented as he was esteemed
In the fortieth year of his age:
On the 12 day of July

MDCCL

Restored 1898

Source:

Preston, Dickson J.  Oxford: The First Three Centuries. (Easton, MD: The Historical Society of Talbot County, 1984), 55-77.