Margaret Morris
Margaret Morris was a notable figure born near Annapolis, Maryland, as one of twelve children to Quaker parents. Her early life was marked by separation from her father, a physician who relocated to Madeira for financial reasons, leaving her and several siblings in the care of an older sister. Educated in Quaker schools, she married William Morris at twenty-one and had four children before his death in 1765. Throughout her life, Morris maintained a diary, starting on her fourteenth birthday, which chronicled her spiritual reflections and daily experiences, particularly during times of personal loss.
As the Revolutionary War unfolded, she began a separate war journal, providing an insightful and detached perspective on the conflict, influenced by her Quaker beliefs that opposed warfare. Morris documented significant events, such as the surprise attack by George Washington on the Hessians at Trenton. Her writings, which included both her private journaling and observations of troop movements, were eventually published posthumously. In addition to her literary contributions, Morris was known for her charitable acts and medical assistance to soldiers during the war and later treated victims during a yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia. She remained active in her community until her death in 1816, leaving behind a legacy as a compassionate observer and participant in significant historical events.
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Subject Terms
Margaret Morris
- Born: 1737
- Birthplace: Near Annapolis, Maryland
- Died: 1816
- Place of death: Burlington, New Jersey
Biography
Born near Annapolis, Maryland, Margaret Hill Morris was one of twelve children of Quaker parents. Her physician father to relocate to Madeira (where he began a wine business) for financial reasons, he left the infant Margaret and five of her siblings behind in Philadelphia to be cared for by her married fifteen-year-old sister. Her father would return after her mother’s death while Margaret was a teenager, but her sister and brother-in-law primarily raised her. She and her siblings were given a good education in Quaker schools; at twenty-one, she married William Morris, a merchant. She would have four children by Morris before his death in December of 1765. In 1770, she moved to Burlington, New Jersey.
Morris began keeping a diary as a young woman, starting it on her fourteenth birthday in 1751; its entries consisted both of ruminations on spirituality as well as a entries on the day-to- day occurrences in her life. As she grew older, diary entries often were sparked by personal loss, as occasioned by the loss of her parents, her husband, sister-in-law, and her oldest child. The enduring legacy of her diary and journals, however, is due to her active observation of scenes during the Revolutionary War.
In 1776, Morris was still living in Burlington when British General Sir William Howe arrived with his troops, soon followed by General Cornwallis’s army and a Hessian contingent. She began a separate war journal on December 6, 1776, and kept it through the June, 1778, victory over Howe. As a Quaker, Morris opposed the war, hoping for reconciliation, and offers in her private writings a particularly detached and objective view to the struggle. She discusses the fear and danger of being a civilian resident in a town contested by warring armies; one of her more affecting passages describes with both dread and humor the danger of hiding a Tory in her house from rebels. Morris’s journal was particularly astute in terms of troop movements and military maneuvers; among other things, she recorded the surprise attack made by Washington on the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas night of 1776.
Morris would later send her war journal to her sister for her amusement; when it was finally published in 1836, it was titled as a Private Journal Kept During a Portion of the Revolutionary War for the Amusement of a Sister. Morris’s earlier diary entries would also be published as part of a collection of her father’s letters in 1854.
Throughout the war, Morris provided medical assistance and many other charitable acts to soldiers on both sides of the conflict; in the years following the war, Morrison became better and better known as a lay physician and a medical expert. She worked to treat many ill persons during a yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. She remained an active participant in community and family life until her death in 1816.