Morris Ketchum Jesup was an American banker and philanthropist. He was the president of the American Museum of Natural History.
Background
Jesup was born on June 21, 1830, in Westport, Connecticut, the fourth son of Charles and Abigail (Sherwood) Jesup, and a descendant of Edward Jessup who emigrated from England and settled in Stamford, Connecticut, some time before 1649. Jesup's father was a graduate of Yale (1814), a merchant of New York and Westport, and was much interested in Sunday schools and the work of the American Tract Society.
The conventional nineteenth-century Connecticut pattern of Morris's boyhood was interrupted by the financial panic of 1837, almost coincident with his father's early death, and by his mother's brave efforts, with slender resources, to hold the family together until the children could become self-supporting. Removal to New York City was the first step in the family's new program, and for the boy Morris this was a most important change.
Education
Jesup attended several private schools in New York, but at the age of twelve he entered the office of the Rogers Locomotive Works.
Career
Jesup gained experience in the office of the Rogers Locomotive Works that was helpful when in 1854, with a partner, he started a small business handling railroad supplies on commission, under the firm name of Clark & Jesup. This developed into the house of M. K. Jesup, with which for ten years John Stewart Kennedy was associated. Among the railroads with which Jesup had business relations at this period (1857-1867) were the Chicago & Alton, the Southern, and the Atlantic Coast Line. The next twenty years of his active business career were devoted to banking and in that calling his fortune was made.
For eight years, 1899-1907, Jesup was president of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York. For the general public, the significant part of Jesup's life opened in 1884 with his retirement from business. At that time he began to develop interests, and to formulate plans for their promotion, in which many groups were to share. His abilities were now wholly at the service of the community, although he held no public office. The American Museum of Natural History seems to have been continually in his thoughts. His great desire was to make the Museum an instrument of popular education and a center of research. At first, because of his Puritan up-bringing, an advocate of Sunday closing, he came to see the wrong involved in excluding any part of the public from the museum's privileges on any day of the week and when the doors were thrown open on Sunday no one rejoiced more than he in the museum's enhanced usefulness. He supported the Carl Lumholtz expedition, 1890-1897, to study the Indians of Northern Mexico, and the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, beginning in 1897, to study migrations between Asia and North America. He early came to the aid of the forest preservation movement in New York State which resulted in the Adirondack Preserve.
Among educational institutions which he aided, he was identified especially with the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut and with Union Theological Seminary in New York. To the former he gave the Maria De Witt Jesup Hospital Foundation. He stoutly upheld the Seminary in the controversies with the Presbyterian Church over the Briggs and McGiffert heresy cases. He made large contributions also to Hampton and Tuskegee, as well as to Yale, Harvard, Williams, and Princeton. He was early interested in the Five Points House of Industry and in the railroad work of the Young Men's Christian Association. His support was given to Anthony Comstock in his fight against indecent publications and he staunchly defended that crusader when other friends had apparently deserted the cause. In all religious efforts in New York for many years he was counted a leader.
Jesup died on January 22, 1908, in New York City, aged 77.
Achievements
Jesup was best known as a patron of scientific research: he was a major contributor to various organizations, including the American Museum of Natural History, Peary Arctic Club, and Audubon Society. Practically in all of these he occupied leading positions.
Membership
The American Museum of Natural History (to which he gave $1, 000, 000 in his lifetime and an equal sum by his will) seems to have been continually in Jesup's thoughts. He was one of the incorporators in 1868, became a trustee the following year, and president in 1881.
As president of the Peary Arctic Club he did much to make the discovery of the North Pole possible, although he died before Peary had achieved his quest.
He was also an enthusiastic supporter of the Audubon Society, of which he was president from 1897 to 1908.
He was also a treasurer of the John F. Slater Fund for the Education of Freedmen (1883-1908), and was a member of the General Education Board.
Connections
On April 26, 1854, Jesup married Maria Van Antwerp De Witt, daughter of the Rev. Thomas De Witt.
