San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WESLEY A. MORRIS
An experienced contractor well known
to Stockton and vicinity as an expert builder of bungalows, who made Stanislaus
County the scene of his operations for a period of two years, but who returned
to Lodi in the summer of 1921, is Wesley A. Morris. He was born near Independence, Jackson
County, Missouri, on February 14, 1855, the son of John Morrow Morris, a
Kentuckian who hailed from Greenville and came into Missouri in early
days. He farmed there, and also worked
as a mechanic capable of building all kinds of wagons. He married Miss Lucinda Maze, and she died
when our subject was four and one-half years old. Grandfather Jesse Morrow
Morris and his wife, who was Polly Ann Johnson, were reared at Louisville, Kentucky
but came to Missouri in the early days.
An uncle of Wesley Morris, William Maze, left Missouri and came to
California some years before the Civil War.
During the Civil War John M. Morris moved his family to Leavenworth
County, Kansas, and in 1861 purchased a farm about seven miles to the southeast
of Leavenworth; and shortly after that, he died there. He had married a second time and his wife,
who survives him, makes her home at Independence, Missouri.
Wesley was sent to the rural
district school near Independence, and when only fourteen years of age, he
started to earn his own living, and left the home of his sister, Mary, the wife
of John G. Smiley, a sergeant in the Civil War.
He worked for wages on various farms until he was seventeen years old, and
then he studied the mechanism of the Singer sewing machine, and became one of
the company’s adjusters at Kansas City, remaining there until in 1877, when he
went to Independence and was in the employ of G. M. Nichol & Bro., until
1880, when he came out to California.
He intended to continue in the
employ of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, but after thirty days with the
Stockton agency, he took up carpentering and building with D. M. Chapell, and did so well in the new field that he was very
active in Stockton as a carpenter until 1897.
Then he went back to the vicinity of his birthplace, and after spending
a year in the middle west, in 1898 he returned to
Stockton, but soon went to Lodi, and there worked as a contractor until 1909,
when he went to Florida. At Orlando and
Jacksonville he again followed building, but in 1919 returned to
California. He stayed a short time at
Lodi, and then, in June, 1919, moved to Modesto, where he once more took up
contracting and building.
Mr. Morris has been twice
married. At Kansas City on April 22, 1877,
he was united to Miss Josephine E. Pierce, a native of Jackson County,
Missouri, and the daughter of John and Mary A. Pierce. Her parents came from Knoxville, Tennessee,
and were early settlers and farmers in Missouri. Again, at Orlando, Florida, on March 13,
1911, Mr. Morris chose a wife, the lady being Mrs. Mary (Temperence)
Houston, a daughter of an Alabama planter.
She died on January 30, 1916, near Orlando, Florida. Of Mr. Morris’ three children, two are still
living. Orie Bliss
was well known at Lodi up to 1918 as a poultryman,
but he is at present engaged in real estate transactions in Los Angeles. He married Miss Irene Genevieve Woods and
they have four children. Mary Effie, the
second child born, has become Mrs. Harry Lansing Boswell of Los Angeles; Mabel
Gertrude died at the age of eleven months.
Mr. Morris’s grandchildren are Gladys Genevieve, Eunice Erma, Nadine
Naomi, and Raymond Russell, the offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Orie
Bliss Morris; and Harry Lansing, Jr., the child of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lansing
Boswell. A great-grandchild is Erma
Stella Pearson, the daughter of Roosevelt R. and Gladys Genevieve (Morris)
Pearson. Mr. Morris is a member of the
Seventh Day Adventists, having been a member of that congregation since 1897. In politics he is strictly non-partisan,
voting for the best men and measures regardless of party affiliation.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
987. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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