The task proved so congenial that for sixteen years he lived the pleasant life of an aristocratic landholder, satisfied with the quitrents and produce from his own and his father's extensive acres.
His marriage, Sept. 24, 1749, however, brought him additional wealth, for Mary Walton, his bride, daughter of Jacob and Maria (Beekman) Walton, was a member of a New York family famed beyond the borders of the province for its possessions.
Morris, Lewis, 1726---1798, , New York 1726 1798 Male Signer of Declaration of Independence signer of the Declaration of Independence, the eldest son of Lewis Morris, second lord of the manor of Morrisania, and Tryntje (Staats) Morris, was born at Morrisania, Westchester County, N. Y. His father carefully supervised his early education and with some misgiving allowed him to enter Yale College.
He completed the work for the degree of A. B. in 1746, the year that his grandfather, Lewis Morris [q. v. ], first royal governor of New Jersey, died, and his father became lord of the manor.
After being graduated he returned to Morrisania to assist his father in the management of the family estates.
Whatever his motives, he represented but a minority in his county when he persuaded certain local politicians from the southeastern towns to issue a call (Mar. 28, 1775) for a meeting at White Plains on Apr. 11 to choose Westchester's deputies to the provincial convention.
The Philipses, De Lanceys, and Pells strove to defeat the purpose of the gathering, but Morris and his faction carried the day, securing the appointment of eight deputies to attend the convention scheduled for Apr. 20, 1775, in New York City.
He was eager to be named on the delegation to represent New York at Philadelphia, an honor which came to him through the action of the provincial convention.
Lewis Morris took his seat in the Continental Congress on May 15, 1775.
Securing a leave of absence from Congress, Morris assumed his military post promptly, apparently believing that it offered greater opportunity for military service than proved to be the case.
He was absent from Philadelphia when the Declaration of Independence was finally adopted, but was present in the fourth provincial congress at White Plains on July 9, 1776, when the action of the Continental Congress was indorsed.
Later in the year he returned to Congress and signed the Declaration.
At the close of hostilities he retired with the rank of major-general of militia and set about the task of rehabilitating his estates, which had been burned and plundered by the British.
In 1784 he became a member of the first Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York.
Two years later he was named a member of the Council of Appointment.
[Peter Force, Am.
Archives, 4 ser.
(6 vols. , 1837 - 46), 5 ser.
(3 vols. , 1848 - 53); W. C. Ford, ed. , Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, vols.
II-VI (1905 - 06); "Letters to General Lewis Morris, " in N. Y. Hist.
Soc.
Colls. , Pub.
Fund Ser. , vol.
VIII (1876); Robert Bolton, A Hist.
of the County of Westchester (2 vols. , 1848); J. T. Scharf, Hist.
of Westchester County, N. Y. (2 vols. , 1886); W. W. Spooner, Hist.
Families of America (copr.
1907). ]
At the death of his father in 1762 Morris became the third (and last) lord of the manor of Morrisania.
