William Henry Morrison

WILLIAM HENRY MORRISON has fulfilled his civil obligations spiritedly and with a large measure of social service, having been an educator, a farmer, a business man, and for a number of years, has conducted his extensive affairs from his home in Stockton.

He is a Wisconsin man by birth, having been born in Richland County, March 6, 1861. This branch of the Morrisons came from the north of Ireland and were colonial settlers of New York and Pennsylvania. His father, H. J. Morrison, was born in Ohio in 1824, was reared and married in that state, spent all his life as a farmer, although he came of a family of educators and ministers. He would himself have chosen a career in the service of the Presbyterian Church, of which he was a lifelong supporter and member, had it not been necessary for him to employ his abilities in caring for the family after the permanent injury of his father. He was one of the pioneers of Richland County, Wisconsin, going there in 1854 and, developing a farm in the midst of the heavy woods. H. J. Morrison lived on his farm nearly half a century and died at Richland Center in 1905. He served as county commissioner and was a loyal republican. One of his brothers was Robert Morrison, who founded Westminster College at Fulton, Missouri, and several other brothers were Presbyterian ministers and founders of Presbyterian institutions of learning. H. J. Morrison married Sally Ann Fox, who was born in Morrow County, Ohio, in 1823 and died at Richland Center, Wisconsin, in 1888. Their children were: Walter L., who served as clerk of the District Court of Barron County, Wisconsin, and died at Chetek in that state at the age of fifty-two; Gilbert T., who was a farmer and died at Argyle, Wisconsin, aged thirty-three; Mary Candace, who married D. W. Troup, a real estate and insurance man at Kansas City, Kansas; Robert T., a commission merchant and member of the Board of Trade of Kansas City, Missouri; Emma E., wife of B. F. Foster, a produce merchant at Sylvan Grove, Kansas; William Henry, the sixth in age; Ella J., wife of Fred Durnford, a farmer at Blue River, Wisconsin.

William Henry Morrison grew up on his father's farm, attended the rural schools of Richland County, and afterwards graduated from Carroll College at Waukesha. Before completing his education he taught school in Richland County, and for fourteen years was one of the leading educators of South Dakota, having conducted teachers institutes all over that state. He entered the grain business at Russell, Kansas, in 1899, but after eight years he sold his interests there and for a year was a merchant at Hoisington. In 1909 he established his permanent home at Stockton, where he resumed the grain trade. He owns his office and elevator on the Missouri Pacific Railway, and also has an elevator at Cedar, Kansas. He does a large amount of business in grain and is himself a producer of Kansas cereals and livestock from his three farms aggregating 720 acres in Jewell, Ford and Logan counties. He owns one of the best homes in Stockton, also a business building and other residence property.

Mr. Morrison is a republican, a member of the Congregational Church and superintendent of the local Sunday school, is a past grand of Stockton Lodge of Odd Fellows, is past master workman of Stockton Lodge, Ancient Order of United Workmen, and a member of Stockton Camp, Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1884, at Lone Rock, Wisconsin, Mr. Morrison married Miss Laura A. Jenkins, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Brewster Jenkins, both now deceased. Her father was a stone mason and was a native of Vermont. Mr. and Mrs. Morrison have a family of six children, all liberally educated, and several of them have chosen professional careers. Ida Candace, the oldest, is a graduate of the College of Emporia, and was a missionary teacher in a Presbyterian school at Juan, Porto Rico, prior to her marriage to Rev. D. H. M. Boyle, who is now pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Belleville, Kansas. Laura Eleanor, a graduate of the College of Emporia, is a missionary in a Presbyterian school at Guatemala, Central America; Rollin Brewster is a graduate of the College of Emporia and now teacher of biology in the city schools of Indianapolis, Indiana. Helen G., graduated from the Kansas State Normal at Emporia, spent three years in the College of Emporia, and is now the wife of J. C. Snyder, a Santa Fe operator living at Seligman, Arizona. Florence Henrietta is at home with her parents during the absence of her husband, Lieut. A. H. Wallace, in France with the United States Army. David L., the youngest of the family, is in his freshman year at Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania.

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