Lewis Morris’s life is very patriotic and wild. He was born in 1726 in Morrisania, New York, and was the eldest of four brothers. He was well educated, and at the age of sixteen was ready to go to college. He was an outstanding student, and graduated Yale college with a reputation of good scholarship and a strict morality. After he returned from college, right away he got absorbed in agriculture. He grew up to marry a person named Miss Walton by whom he had six children.
As the colonial troubles began, Mr. Morris knew that many of his privileges might be taken away, and not many were to be added. Yet he was a very devoted patriot, too devoted to let these thoughts stop him. He approved that the British King was a tyrant, and too much of a tyrant to possibly ignore. He desired to battle with the English, although he felt that bloodshed is not a good choice at so early a stage in the troubles of the country. However, he was too independent and bold to join the first congress of New York, which was not a completely intelligent decision.
As the battles of Lexington and Concord revealed the truth behind the British friendliness, the American Legislature now considered it necessary to obtain men of a zealous, bold, and independent nature. Lewis Morris of New York, of course, possessed this quality, thus joining the Second Continental Congress with out much rejection. At the close of the session he was sent to the western country to assist in the difficult operation of detaching the Indians from their British allies, and inducing them to make common cause with he colonists. He remained at Pittsburgh until the following winter, and maintained a constant correspondence with congress on the subject of Indian affairs. Later, he resumed his position in the Congress, and there, in this congressional gathering, he signed, as did few others, the acknowledged Declaration of Independence.
He did so knowing that a large British army had just arrived within artillery range of his domestic property. Yet he yelled something like “Damn the consequences, give me the pen,” and Signed the Declaration. Soon after, more than a thousand acres of woodland were burned, his house was ransacked, his family driven away, his livestock captured, his property and occupants isolated, and the entire property laid waste and ruined. For the six years that followed, he and his family suffered in poverty until the evacuation of New York City.
Lewis Morris is a bit odd in my point of view, since he left his family and property to what could be their deaths, in order to sign some important piece of paper. I wouldn’t have done it. Family would have been more important to me. Even if the whole issue of independence rested on me. But he did. This shows that he is a determined, but slightly careless man. Yet he was greater a patriot than any of us, and America must remember him for the rest of time.
Bibliography.
http://www.virtualology.com/lewismorris/
http://www.colonialhall.com/morris/morrisl.asp
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~nnnotables/zlem.html
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