Jehoshaphat Morris

 August 17, 1786 - November 12, 1857   

71 years, 2 months, 26 days

1st Marriage:   Sarah White - married September 27, 1809 - died in 1813

Children of Jehoshaphat & Sarah:
Thomas Morris (1810-1885 / 74 years)
Pritchard Morris (1813-1887 / 74 years)

2nd Marriage:   Margaret “Peggy” Trueblood - married June 2, 1814 - died in 1831

Children of Jehoshaphat & Peggy:
Mary Susanna Morris (1815-1880 / 65 years)
Nathan Morris (1819-1897 / 78 years)
Elizabeth Morris (1821-1838 / 17 years)
Margaret Morris (Rahill) (1823-1893 / 70 years)
Semira Morris (Copeland) (1826-)
William Morris (1828-1909 / 80  years)

3rd Marriage:   Susanna Jordan (Nixon) (Knight) - married February 6, 1834 - died in 1891

Children of Jehoshaphat & Susanna:
Jordan Morris (1835-1919 / 84 years)

The following is taken from "The Morris Family of Washington County, Indiana" written by Earl Clifford Morris and Ralph Leroy Morris in 1992. 

Jehoshaphat and Sarah Morris are the 3rd Great Grandparents of Jon Q. Peterson

The Journey of the Morris family from North Carolina to Indiana in 1815 

Photos and website links added by Kristin (Johnson/Granquist) Peterson

Pasquotank County, North Carolina

Pasquotank County, North Carolina, where Jehoshaphat was born, and where the Morrises and many other Quaker settlers of Washington County had lived for over 100 years, is in the northeast corner of the state and is a portion of the “Great Dismal Swamp”. Jehoshaphat’s mother, Lydia, the 25 year old widow of William Davis, was his father’s second wife. He had six older half-brothers and half-sisters, whose mother, Margaret, had died at the age of 28. His mother, Lydia, had lost her first husband on the day before her only child, Lydia, was born. We have no record of this half-sister but all of Margaret’s children were living in 1882, when Aaron and Lydia were married, and she had a ready made family of seven, all 11 years old and under, counting her own year old baby.  Jehoshaphat was the third son (and third child) of Aaron and Lydia’s and he was to have two younger sisters and a younger brother John.

John Woolman Winslow, another early settler, was to refer to Pasquotank County and the Albemarle Country, as “yon in that unusually sickly place”. The fate of Jehoshaphat’s family might attest to this description. His father, Aaron, died in 1796, aged 52, when Jehoshaphat was only 10 years old. His mother, Lydia (51), and his half-brother, Thomas (40), died in 1807, his younger brother, John, having died at age 9 in 1803. His sister, Margaret, died in 1808 at 20, Christopher (40) died three years later in 1811 and his half-sister, Mary White (39), died in 1813.

Jehoshaphat marries Sarah

Jehoshaphat married 18 year old Sarah White on September 27, 1809 at a public meeting at Newbegun Creek.  They had two sons, Thomas and Pritchard.  Sarah died at age 22, three months after Pritchard was born. 

A New Marriage and a Move to Indiana

In 1814, Jehoshaphat married Peggy Trueblood at the Narrows Monthly Meeting. Then Jehoshaphat, with his new bride and two young sons, joined a wagon train in early 1815 for new, healthier lands.

Forest W. Feris in his document entitled “How Proudly We Hail” reports the wagon train had fourteen horses when they left Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Jehoshaphat had two horses to pull their wagon over the 1,000 mile trip that ended on July 7, 1815. The train included the Truebloods, the Whites, Symons, Pritchards and other families of the Symons Creek Friends.

It has been reported that at least seven Morris families migrated to Indiana during this period. Five were children of Aaron and at least one from Aaron’s brother, Joshua’s family. Jehoshaphat and his little family were among the first. His brother Aaron, migrated in 1818 and apparently so did his sister, Sarah Bogue, in the same year.

The Wagon Train Route

Fred Winslow reported that the wagon train followed a trail west, along or near the border of North Carolina and Virginia to Cumberland Gap, where Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee join, at which point it was necessary for the wagons to ascend a 1,500 ft. mountain.

Thence, down a valley to Corbin, Kentucky. And to Lexington and on to a crossing of the Ohio River at Charlestown Landing, about 15 miles up the river from Louisville. From Charlestown, they followed an Indian trail, 25 or 30 miles to Blue River. The trip took eight or ten weeks.

These families and others, were the founders of the Old Blue River Friends Meeting in July, 1815.  The earliest date of their arrival is the record of Jehoshaphat and children, Thomas and Pritchard, having been granted certification to Lick Creek Monthly Meeting, Washington Co., Indiana on April 15, 1815. (or April 4, some state). 

Original Homestead

Each family selected a place for a home, usually near a spring or flowing water. Jehoshaphat elected to purchase a farm with two springs, one a source of Blue River, about 10 miles NE of Salem, (in the NW 1/4, Sec. 21, T.3N; R 5E.) which had been entered by Thomas Thompson.  Additional acres were purchased for a “bit” per acre (12 1/2 cents) and some others were added by original entry.  This became the “original homestead” of our branch of the Morris Family.

Original Homestead still in the Family

In 1818, the eldest brother, Aaron, came over with his family of four sons (three more sons were born in Indiana) and settled 1/2 mile north of Jehoshaphat.  Evidence also indicates that he also brought James White Morris his nephew, aged 12, (son of Thomas & orphaned in 1817) with him.  Their claim amounted to several hundred acres of level land on the watershed, known for generations as “The Flat Woods” or the “Morris Neighborhood.”  When Jehoshaphat’s son, Pritchard, married, he built a home 1/4 mile east of the homestead, where he lived until he died in 1887.  The farm has been in the possession of Jehoshaphat’s descendants until this day.

The third brother, Pritchard, also came to Washington County and a story is told about him at a house raising but we have no record of where he may have gone from Blue River.  Possibly it may have been to the Whitewater, near Richmond.

Jehoshaphat and Peggy’s Family

After settling in Indiana, Jehoshaphat and Peggy raised a family of six additional children.  Elizabeth never married and we have no information regarding Semira but the other four, plus Thomas and Pritchard, all have descendants here. 

Jehoshaphat’s Third Wife, Susanna

After Peggy died in 1831, Jehoshaphat married Susanna Nixon, the widow of Foster Nixon, and were the parents of one son, Jordan.  Susanna was 58 years old when Jehoshaphat died in 1857 and she married a third time to Levi Knight in 1866 at the Old Blue River Friends (Hicksite) Meeting House. 

The Migration from Symons Creek MM by the Morrises

From Winslow - Morris Genealogy, by Fred E. Winslow, p. 55

  The Jehoshaphat Morris family came to Indiana in a wagontrain with others from Symons Creek Monthly Meeting (Pasquotank County) during the early summer of 1815, carrying their certificates from the meeting to Lick Creek MM in Washington County, Ind., and were among the founders of the Blue River Monthly Meeting of July 1, 1815. Other families who came with them were the Truebloods, Whites, Nixons, Symons, Coxes, Pritchards, Cosands, and perhaps others. 

  They followed a trail near the North Carolina-Virginia state line, west to Cumberland Gap, at the corner of the Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Here they found a 1500-foot-mountain to climb to get to the top of the pass. No doubt here they stopped while two or more teams of horses or oxen were hitched on the lead of each wagon to pull it up the mountain. Then the wagon was guided down the west side with its own team, the wagon being held by brakes. When all were over, they followed the trail northwest down a valley between high mountains, to Corbin, and on to Lexington. Here a trail turned north to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Richmond, Indiana, but they followed the newer trail northwest to the Ohio River at Charlestown Landing, about fifteen miles up the river from Louisville. They, like others, crossed there rather than risk a ferry crossing nearer the falls of the Ohio. From Charlestown, they followed an old Indian trail northwest between 25 and 30 miles to Blue River, their future home. The trip took perhaps eight to ten weeks, for the most part through an unbroken wilderness, camping each night in the open. 

  Here, near Blue River, each family selected a place for a home, usually located near a spring of flowing water. Jehoshaphat selected a farm with two springs, one a source of Blue River, about seven miles northeast of where Salem now stands. In 1818, his older brother, Aaron, and his family of seven sons, came over and settled half a mile north of Jehoshaphat. Their claims were composed of several hundred acres of level ground on the watershed, known for generations as "The Flat Woods" and the "Morris Neighborhood." When Pritchard, Jehoshaphat's son, was married, he built and lived in a home at the spring, a fourth mile from his father's home, where he died in 1887. The farm has been in continuous possession of the descendants, and is now owned by the fifth generation from Jehoshaphat. 

Washington County Giants

A book "Washington County Giants" by Harvey Morris, published in 1921 in Greenfield, Indiana by William Mitchell Printing Co. contains a couple paragraphs about Jehoshaphat and his brother, Pritchard.   The following photo from a page in the book "Washington County Giants" is from Ancestry.com - luanloudon

Morris Family (home)  - Kinstories (home)  -  Johnson Family  -  Susag Family  -  Flatau Family  -  Beckman Family
Granquist Family  -  Anderson Family  -  Stout Family  -  Walker Family  - Peterson Family  -  Cauble Family