Known for

• New York State Senator from the Southern District (1777-1781, 1783-1790)​

​

During 1776

• Delegate for New York

• Age: 50

​

Background

• Born: 1726 on the Morrisania estate (Bronx), New York​

• His family was well-to-do

• Education: Yale

• Spouse: Mary Walton (m. 1749)

• ​Children: 10

• Slaveowning

  • The Morris estate had owned slaves for generations

​

Personal beliefs

• Politics: Patriot/Whig

  • Resided in a highly Loyalist area

  • Not selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress because New Yorkers still wanted to make peace with the Crown, and voters considered him too unlikely to support compromise

  • When warned by his brother Staats Morris, who was a general in the British army, of the consequences that would follow his signing of the Declaration of Independence, Morris said, "Damn the consequences. Give me the pen."

  • When the British army captured New York in the year 1776, they looted and burned the Morrisania estate, and the Morris family was forced to flee

• Religion: Unclear, however his remains were interred at St. Anne’s of Morrisiana Church, which is Episcopalian.​

  • ​The Episcopalian doctrine with the Eucharist is called "real presence", which says that Christ is well and truly present in the physical elements of the Eucharist, although the form that takes is unknowable to mankind.