|
Lloyd Ultan
Bronx Borough Historian
 |
| right:
Morris
High School circa 1910 |
In The Bronx today, there is a
Morrisania neighborhood and a Morris Avenue, both
named for the colonial era Morris family, which once owned the
Manor of Morrisania in the southwest quarter of the modern Bronx.
Two of its most outstanding members were the half brothers, Lewis
and Gouverneur Morris.
Although educated at Yale, Lewis
Morris’s passion was breeding thoroughbred horses at Morrisania and
racing them. In 1752, one of
his steeds won a race in New York City, and the silver bowl Morris was
awarded can now be seen in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art.
At the onset of the American
Revolution, Lewis Morris embraced the Patriot cause against Great Britain. He was chosen the General of the local county militia, a member of
the colonial Congress, and a representative of New York Colony to the
Second Continental Congress. He
served in all three posts at the same time.
In the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of
Independence. In fact, the
modern musical, “1776,” features Lewis Morris as the spokesman for New
York throughout the play. During the war, Morrisania was occupied by
British and Tory troops, and Lewis Morris spent all of his time at the
Continental Congress in Philadelphia. He
was placed in charge of Indian affairs. He
worked tirelessly to keep the Indian tribes neutral or helpful to the
Americans in the conflict.
When Morris returned home after the
war in 1783, his property was in shambles.
It was then he proposed Morrisania as the nation’s capital. He told Congress that his manor was inland and safe from
invasion, yet on a waterway for easy access from any of the thirteen
states, and that it had a “salubrious climate.”
Congress, however, chose Washington D.C. as the nation’s capital
in the following decade. Morris,
however, became a member of the state’s first Board of Regents, a
position he held until he died. Thus, Lewis Morris had a hand in
fashioning the state’s first educational system.
Today, an apartment house on the Grand Concourse near 175th Street
bears his name.
Lewis Morris’s younger half
brother, Gouverneur Morris, became a lawyer after being the valedictorian
of his class at Columbia. He
soon joined the Patriot cause in the American Revolution.
As a delegate to the state Congress, he helped write New York
State’s first Constitution. He
then went to Philadelphia, aiding Robert Morris (no relation) raise funds
and organize the young nation’s finances.
In 1787, he was shocked to learn he was chosen by Pennsylvania as a
delegate to the Constitutional Convention, even though he was a citizen of
New York. At that Convention,
Gouverneur Morris was chiefly responsible for the method of electing the
President, and it was he who coined the phrase “We the People” which
begins the document. He also
put all the scattered resolutions into an easily readable form.
Thus, Gouverneur Morris is called “The Penman of the
Constitution.”
President Washington appointed
Morris the American ambassador to France just when the French Revolution
was breaking out. As the only
envoy from any country that stayed during the Reign of Terror, he saved
the lives of aristocrats who sought asylum in his embassy.
Gouverneur Morris returned home in 1800, was named a United States
Senator from New York and then served on a New York City commission that
created the grid pattern for Manhattan streets.
He promoted the idea of the Erie Canal, and died in 1816 while
serving as the President of the Erie Canal Commission.
Today, Morris High School is named for him.
In 1841, his son, Gouverneur Morris
II, gathered the remains of all his family members and reinterred them in
the newly-built St. Anns Church. Thus,
both the Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Framer of the
Constitution from The Bronx are buried at that church on St. Anns Avenue
and 140th Street.
This article was reprinted with
permission from The
Bronx Historian On-Line |
