Morton, John, , Pennsylvania 1724 1777 Male Signer of Declaration of Independence signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born after his father's death in Ridley, Chester (now Delaware) County, Pa. , the son of John Morton and Mary Archer.
Education
Young Morton received only three months of public schooling, but he was efficiently educated at home in all common branches of learning by his foster father, John Sketchley, an Englishman of excellent training and a surveyor by profession, who had married the widowed Mrs. Morton and had taken an affectionate interest in her son.
Career
His great-grandfather, Morten Mortenson, had sailed from Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1654, a member of the Tenth Swedish Expedition under Johan Classon Rising, the last governor of New Sweden.
Many tracts on Tinicum Island were surveyed by Morton.
He also served for a time as president judge of the court of general sessions and common pleas of his county, and became in April 1774 an associate judge of the supreme court of the province.
In 1765 he was one of the four Pennsylvania delegates to the Stamp Act Congress and was a delegate to the Continental congresses from 1774 until early in 1777.
In the session of July 1776, his vote together with those of Benjamin Franklin and James Wilson placed Pennsylvania on the side of independence by a majority of one.
His character is revealed in his unrelenting stand in favor of colonial freedom, in a state where opinion on the matter was seriously divided.
A museum of Swedish-American interests erected in Philadelphia has been named the John Morton Memorial Building.
[Sources include: Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pa. , vols.
IX and X (1852); Pa.
Archives, 2 ser.
IX (1880); M. A. Leach, "John Morton, " Am.
Scandinavian Rev. , July-Aug.
1915; J. H. Martin, Chester (and Its Vicinity), Delaware County, in Pa. (1877); Geo.
Smith, Hist.
of Delaware County, Pa. (1862); H. D. Paxson, Sketch and Map of a Trip from Phila.
to Tinicum Island, Delaware County, Pa. (1926).
There are brief biographies of Morton in the various works on the Signers, though they are for the most part mere eulogies of character.
Since there were several contemporaries by the same name, no portrait of Morton, the Signer, is considered authentic.
His tombstone in St. Paul's churchyard at Chester, Pa. and the tablet to his memory in the Independence Chamber of the State House in Philadelphia give 1724 as the year of birth, but it may have taken place early in 1725, N. S. ]
Connections
Possessed of an alert, mature mind, great industry, and a fondness for precision, the stepson was soon able to share the work of his teacher, so that his early employment consisted in surveying lands and cultivating his "patrimonial farm. "