Morris's Boston

Much remains unknown about Morris's wife, Catharine. Edwin G. Walker stated in his eulogy for Robert Morris that Catharine was the daughter of Joseph Mason, a highly respected Bostonian. In Sarah's Long Walk, Stephen and Paul Kendrick write that Catharine worked as a cook for the prominent Savage family, presumably the Boston banker and lawyer James Savage. By 1845, she had met Robert Morris. The John J. Burns Library at Boston College holds the Morris library, which includes the books that the couple exchanged throughout their relationship. The earliest ones are inscribed January 1, 1845. In 1846, Catharine and Robert married in the home of Ellis Gray Loring. Other Boston activists, including William Lloyd Garrison, attended.

The extent of Catharine's own activism is unknown. Ellen and William Craft escaped from enslavement in Georgia in 1848 and were hidden in Boston until escaping to Europe in 1850. An 1870 letter from Ellen Craft to Catharine suggests a longstanding, affectionate relationship that probably began when the Crafts were hiding in Boston.

Catharine brought her family into the Catholic Church and was connected, like Robert, to Boston College. She donated a tapestry to the college around 1884. Her funeral was held at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, next to the original Boston College campus. Catharine named the Church as the residuary beneficiary of her estate in her will.

Image: The Harriet Hayden Albums, Boston Athenaeum

Born: c. 1825 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Died: November 20, 1895 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Robert Morris Jr. was the only child of Robert and Catharine Morris to survive into adulthood. His sister Catharine died around age 10 in December 1856, and his brother Mason died in 1850 at one year old. Robert Jr. was educated abroad in France and England at Catholic schools in what was likely an effort by his parents to remove him from the U.S. during the Civil War. Charles Sumner helped secure the young man a passport in the early 1860s when it was delayed on the basis of his color. The family regularly exchanged letters during his time abroad, and Robert Sr. proudly sent a photograph along with an update on his son's achievements to Senator Sumner. By 1870, Robert Jr. had returned to the U.S. to study at Harvard Law School. Father and son practiced law together for over a decade. Their names appear regularly in Boston newspaper reports on various cases. They also both were active in the Boston College Young Men's Catholic Association, for which Robert Jr. served as librarian. He lived with Catharine and Robert Sr. at 78 West Newton St. in Boston's South End until his death from typhoid at age 35, mere weeks after Robert Sr.'s own death.

Image: The Harriet Hayden Albums, Boston Athenaeum

Born: February 7, 1848 (Chelsea, Massachusetts)

Died: December 26, 1882 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Frederick Douglass was one of the most famous Americans of the 19th century. He was born into slavery in Maryland and escaped with the aid of Anna Murray, whom he married soon after arriving in New York City. Frederick and Anna then lived for almost ten years in New Bedford and Lynn, Massachusetts, where Douglass built his reputation as one of the country's greatest orators, abolitionists, and proponents of an expansive view of equality under the law.

Douglass's first book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, was published in Boston in 1845. Morris immediately acquired a copy. He and Douglass crossed paths, including at an 1847 event held for Douglass upon his return from a speaking tour in England. Morris supported Douglass when the latter accused William Lloyd Garrison and other White leaders of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS) of tokenizing Black voices. In turn, Douglass vigorously protested the assassination of Morris's character when enemies within the abolitionist movement falsely claimed he would support the return of a freedom seeker under the Fugitive Slave Act.

Image: Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives

Born: February 1818 (Talbot County, Maryland)

Died: February 20, 1895 (Washington, D.C.)

LEARN MORE ABOUT FREDERICK DOUGLASS

William Lloyd Garrison was one of the best known White abolitionists in the 19th century. In the early 1830s in Boston, he founded the American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS) and started the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, to which Robert Morris subscribed and contributed. Garrison was targeted for his activism and in 1835, a mob captured him after a speech to the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, tied him with rope, and dragged him toward Boston Common until authorities intervened.

Garrison also faced criticism from fellow abolitionists. Some disagreed with his view that the U.S. Constitution was inherently a pro-slavery document and that political solutions to slavery were bound to fail. Others felt that he failed to live up to his integrationist ideals: Frederick Douglass, Morris, and other Black activists accused him of favoring White people for lucrative positions at The Liberator and AAS. Despite these tensions, Garrison and Morris continued fighting in the same circles against slavery and for equal rights for marginalized people. Garrison closed the doors of The Liberator after the end of the Civil War and ratification of the 13th amendment (which abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime). He advocated for equal rights for people of color and women until his death. Morris, Douglass, and Lewis Hayden attended Garrison's funeral at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Image: Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Born: December 10, 1805 (Newburyport, Massachusetts)

Died: May 24, 1879 (New York, New York)

LEARN MORE ABOUT WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

Ellis Gray Loring was a lawyer and founding member of the New England Anti-Slavery Society, alongside William Lloyd Garrison and other Boston abolitionists. Loring met a young Robert Morris around 1836 when he was working as a waiter at the home of John G. King, a Salem lawyer. Loring and his wife Louisa were impressed and invited him to work for Loring in Boston. Morris made the move and worked as Loring's office assistant, then copyist, and eventually, his legal apprentice. During his years living with the Lorings, Morris connected with their wide circle of literary and reform-minded friends, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lydia Maria Child.

Robert Morris and Catharine Mason were married at the Loring's home in 1846, and Morris became a member of the Massachusetts bar upon Ellis Gray Loring's motion in 1847. The two men worked in Boston's antislavery circles together for years as members of the Boston Vigilance Committee. Loring joined with Morris and others to represent Shadrach Minkins in 1851 and testified on Morris's behalf when Morris himself was arrested for helping Minkins escape.

Image: Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society

Born: April 14, 1803 (Boston ,Massachusetts)

Died: May 24, 1858 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Like her husband Lewis, Harriet Bell Hayden was enslaved in Kentucky before escaping in 1844. Once settled in Boston, Lewis ran a clothing store, and Harriet ran a boardinghouse in their home on Beacon Hill. It has been estimated that at least 75% of the fugitives who came through Boston stayed at the Hayden home, which is now a National Historic Site. Connections between Robert Morris and Lewis Hayden are more prominent in the historical record, but Morris was friends with Harriet as well. In 1863, Morris inscribed and gave to her a photo album that included images of many prominent Black Bostonians. Harriet Hayden continued to be an activist until her death, upon which she bequeathed funds for a scholarship to support the education of students of color at Harvard Medical School. The Hayden scholarship continues to be awarded today.

Image: The Cleveland Gazette, February 24, 1894

Born: 1816 (Kentucky)

Died: 1893 (Boston, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT HARRIET BELL HAYDEN

Lewis Hayden escaped from slavery in Kentucky with his wife, Harriet Bell Hayden, in 1844. After several years of evading capture, the couple settled in Boston and became well-known as antislavery activists. Their home on Beacon Hill was a much-used stop on the Underground Railroad. The Haydens, along with Robert Morris, were active members of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which provided fugitives from slavery with clothing, shelter, and legal representation. In 1851, Morris and Lewis Hayden were arrested with seven others for allegedly aiding in the rescue of Shadrach Minkins. Minkins had been captured under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and was in danger of being returned to slavery in Virginia. After being swept from the courtroom by multiple rescuers, Minkins ultimately made it to Canada. Indictments were issued for at least four of those arrested. Hayden's case ended with a hung jury, and Morris eventually was acquitted. Hayden was later quoted as stating that he and Morris hid Minkins in an attic before sneaking him out of Boston.

Image: Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection

Born: December 2, 1811 (Lexington, Kentucky)

Died: April 7, 1889 (Boston, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT LEWIS HAYDEN

Benjamin Roberts was a Boston civil rights activist and printer, and was known for hiring and training other Black printers. He printed books and pamphlets and produced two of the earliest newspapers owned and edited by African-Americans. Roberts also printed broadsides for the Boston Vigilance Committee to post around the city, warning people of color of the presence of fugitive slave catchers. In 1848, Roberts hired Robert Morris to sue the city of Boston on behalf of his daughter, Sarah, who had been denied entry to the closest public school due to her skin color. Despite a heartbreaking loss when the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts adopted a "separate but equal" holding, Roberts and Morris kept pushing for school integration. In 1855, the Massachusetts legislature rectified the Court's ruling by enacting a statute that forbade discrimination in Boston's schools on the basis of race or color.

Image: Anti-Slavery Almanac, Boston, 1839

Born: September 4, 1815 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Died: September 6, 1881 (Boston, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT BENJAMIN ROBERTS

Charles Sumner was one of the most prominent White abolitionists and advocates for equal rights for people of color. Alongside Robert Morris, Sumner argued the appeal in the major school desegregation case, Roberts v. City of Boston. He argued that Massachusetts law provided for equal treatment regardless of race or color and that excluding young Sarah Roberts from a public school violated her constitutional rights. The court ultimately rejected that argument, embracing a "separate but equal" holding. However, the arguments advanced by Sumner and Morris in the Roberts case laid the groundwork for the U.S. Supreme Court's eventual ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Sumner was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1851 and served as an advocate for abolition and equal rights until his death. In 1856, after giving an antislavery speech, he was brutally beaten on the floor of the Senate Chamber by Rep. Preston Brooks of South Carolina. Of the attack and Sumner's years-long recovery, Morris wrote "no persons felt more keenly and sympathised with you more deeply and sincerely, than your colored constituents in Boston." The two men remained in contact until Sumner's death. An invitation to Sumner's funeral is among Morris's papers in the Boston Athenaeum.

Image: Courtesy of the Brady-Handy photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Born: January 6, 1811 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Died: March 11, 1874 (Washington, D.C.)

LEARN MORE ABOUT CHARLES SUMNER

Richard Henry Dana Jr. was a writer, lawyer, and member of Boston's Vigilance Committee. In his twenties, Dana left his home state of Massachusetts to become a merchant seaman. Herman Melville described Dana's memoir about his time at sea, Two Years Before the Mast (1840), as "unmatchable." When Dana returned home, he attended Harvard Law School and became active in antislavery work. After Shadrach Minkins was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act in 1851, Dana and Robert Morris were among the lawyers who represented him. Morris was soon charged with aiding in Minkins's successful escape. Dana and John Parker Hale represented Morris and eventually secured an acquittal. Morris sent a thank you note and a set of constitutional law books to Dana in thanks for service to Morris and Boston's African American community.

Dana would go on to represent freedom seekers Thomas Sims and Anthony Burns in 1851 and 1854, respectively. He was severely beaten in 1854 by attackers who wanted Burns to be returned to slavery in Virginia. During the American Civil War, Dana successfully argued to the U.S. Supreme Court that President Lincoln's blockade of Confederate ports was constitutional. Dana also served as one of the lawyers for the U.S. treason prosecution of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Image: Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Born: August 1, 1815 (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

Died: January 6, 1882 (Rome, Italy)

Like Robert Morris, William Cooper Nell fought to integrate Boston's schools, protect fugitives from slavery on the Boston Vigilance Committee, and integrate the state militia. Nell's home was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and he wrote a crucial history book and public relations tool called The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855) in which he extolled the achievements of military and civic leaders of color back to colonial times. He featured Morris in the book as one of the country's first Black lawyers.

Morris and Nell worked as allies on many fronts but occasionally clashed. In the early 1850s, Frederick Douglass fought publicly with Nell's longtime boss and mentor, William Lloyd Garrison. Douglass accused Garrison of engaging in tokenism at his newspaper, The Liberator, and at the American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS). Douglass pointed to Nell as the only Black employee at Garrison's Anti-Slavery Office. Morris offended Nell when he took Douglass's side, but the two continued to work together in the ensuing years.

Image: Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society

Born: December 16, 1816 (Boston, Massachusetts)

Died: May 25, 1874 (Boston, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT WILLIAM COOPER NELL

Lydia Maria Child was a writer, women's rights activist, and powerful antiracist voice in 19th-century America. Child burst onto the Boston literary scene after the publication of her first novel, Hobomok (1824), which features an interracial marriage between a Native American man and the White female narrator, despite the racial and religious bigotries of family and friends. Child soon became a regular participant in a Boston circle of reform-minded religious, political, and literary figures that included Robert Morris's mentor Ellis Gray Loring, Charles Sumner, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the late 1830s, during one trip to the Loring home, Child gave young Morris, already a budding book collector, a copy of Olaudah Equiano's slave narrative. The two remained in contact for decades.

In An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), Child advocated for the immediate emancipation of enslaved people with no compensation to enslavers and criticized laws against interracial marriage, radical positions at the time. She worked with the American Anti-Slavery Society, even after a split in the organization over the involvement of women, and served for two years as editor of the AAS's newspaper, National Anti-Slavery Standard. Between her journalistic work, novels, and nonfiction writing, she pulled many readers into the abolitionist movement and drew attention to issues of racial and gender discrimination.

Image: Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Born: February 11, 1802 (Medford, Massachusetts)

Died: October 20, 1880 (Wayland, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT LYDIA MARIA CHILD

Edwin G. Walker was a Massachusetts lawyer, activist, and legislator. He was raised by his mother, Eliza Walker, the widow of David Walker. David Walker had died soon after releasing his Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1830), a powerful pamphlet that called for the immediate abolition of slavery, through a violent uprising if necessary. Edwin G. Walker continued this activism, petitioning the Massachusetts legislature on many antislavery and anti-segregation measures. In 1861, Walker became the third African American lawyer in the country, with his predecessor and mentor Robert Morris endorsing his admission to the bar. The two men remained close. After Morris's death, Walker gave the eulogy at his memorial service. In 1867, Walker became one of the first two African Americans elected to the Massachusetts legislature, along with Charles Mitchell. Walker spoke openly during the state convention on the ratification of the 14th Amendment, presciently arguing that it did not go far enough to ensure the political equality of people of color.  

Image: From the New York Public Library

Born: c. 1830-1835 (likely Boston, Massachusetts)

Died: January 13, 1901 (Boston, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT EDWIN G. WALKER

Patrick A. Collins was the second Irish Catholic mayor of Boston, serving from 1902 until his death in 1905. Collins had immigrated to Boston from Ireland with his widowed mother and his siblings in 1848. He faced hostility in his new hometown. When Patrick was ten years old, he suffered a broken arm and bruises during an attack on the parish church and the homes of Chelsea Catholics. In 1856, Robert Morris hired twelve-year-old Patrick as his office boy after meeting him at their Chelsea parish. Morris probably saw something of himself in the young Irish immigrant who was facing discrimination—Morris had been around the same age when he left Salem to work in Ellis Gray Loring's law office. Collins and Morris remained connected as Collins grew up, became a lawyer himself, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1882, he served as a pallbearer at Morris's funeral and offered words in honor of his former mentor at his memorial service.

Image: Courtesy of the State Library of Massachusetts

Born: March 12, 1844 (Cork, Ireland)

Died: September 13, 1905 (Boston, Massachusetts)

LEARN MORE ABOUT PATRICK A. COLLINS

Emery T. Morris was Robert Morris's nephew and an activist in his own right. After moving to Boston as a teenager, Robert remained close to his mother and siblings in Salem. His brothers' names often appear on his petitions to integrate the militia. George Lee, the son of Robert's sister Harriet, became a lawyer like his uncle. Emery, son of Robert's brother William, shared his family's sense of community engagement and activism, and became an outspoken advocate for equal rights. He often appeared in news items alongside Robert Morris's mentee Edwin G. Walker. Emery served as president of the Massachusetts branch of the National Equal Rights League. He also helped establish the Boston-area chapter of the Niagara Movement, an organization founded by W.E.B. Du Bois to advance the full political, civil, and social rights of African Americans; it was the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During World War I, Emery Morris corresponded with President Woodrow Wilson, advocating for the integration of troops as his uncle had before him. Emery also shared Robert's love of books and built his own collection, including a huge library of antislavery books.

Image: Courtesy of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University

Born: September 11, 1851 (Salem, Massachusetts)

Died: September 24, 1924 (Cambridge, Massachusetts)