Morris, Robert
John M. McDonald interview — 1848
Robert Morris (1762-1851) was the son of Richard Morris, who served as Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, and his wife, Sarah Ludlow. The Morris family of Morrisania had to leave Morrisania in the southwest portion of present-day Bronx County while it was occupied by Loyalists for most of the Revolutionary War. Robert Morris describes a number of locations in the Bronx, including the houses of various members of the Morris family. He notes that Colonel Roger Morris of the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan was not related to the Morrises of Morrisania, but that Colonel Anthony Walton White of the Continental Light Dragoons was a relative. Morris relates a story that he heard from Colonel White regarding an unsuccessful attempt to capture Loyalist Colonel James DeLancey, and concludes with a comment regarding the location of the capture of British Major John André in 1780.
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Transcription
- Hufeland Index Page 668 -
Robert Morris, Senior, of Fordham: “I am eighty seven, and was born in my father’s house, which was burnt in January, 1780, by Captain Lockwood. It was a large two story stone house, and stood between here and Fort No. 8, on the east side of the road, south of No. 8, and a little north of this house
- Hufeland Index Page 669 -
Part of the walls are yet standing and form a long low one story building on the east side of the road. I left here in the beginning of the war of the Revolution and did not return till its termination. Colonel DeLancey’s Headquarters were for a long while at my father’s house before it was burnt. There was no road in the Revolutionary war that I ever heard of, leading from my house or from any place between my house and DeVoe’s Point, directly to West Farms. There might have been a military road but I never knew of one. People hereabouts when going to West Farms went up this road till they came to the road from Dyckman’s bridge or the Farmers Bridge to DeLancey’s Mills and pursued that route. – There was no bridge on the Bronx below DeLancey’s at West Farms, and the inhabitants of Morrisania in going to West Chester went by a road leading along the Bronx to West Farms where they crossed DeLancey’s bridge and then gained the Borough Village by the customary route.
The house of Gouverneur Morris stands on the spot where the old house owned by his father and grandfather stood on the east side of Mill Brook
- Hufeland Index Page 670 -
which divided Gouverneur’s lands from Colonel Lewis’s. Colonel Lewis Morris’s house stood on the west side of Mill Brook near Haerlem river. James Morris (the Sheriff’s) house was built in the woods where no house had previously stood. I don’t know where the Refugee settlement burnt in 1781 by Colonel Hull stood, but it was probably near the old Mill which stood on Mill Brook, a little below James Morris’s Gate on the Post road. Colonel Roger Morris who lived in the house now owned by Madame Jumel, was no relation to our family. He was a British officer and returned home at the conclusion of the war. There is no stream running into the Sound or Haerlem River between Still [X] Brook and the Bronx. Lieut. Colonel Anthony Walton White was related to our family, and was a Jersey man He told me that when he attacked the Refugees he approached DeLancey’s bridge
[X] wrong Mill
- Hufeland Index Page 671 -
cautiously, took sentinels, and made his men pull off their coats and lay them on the planks for fear of giving an alarm, as it was his intention to make prisoners of Colonel DeLancey and other Refugee Officers who were then at a neighboring house enjoying a cock fight. Notwithstanding all his precautions, however, they escaped. Colonel White settled at the West, but finally returned, and died, I think, at New Brunswick, New Jersey. I lived some years at Tarrytown and know exactly where Major André was taken. His captors were lying in ambush on the east side of the road.
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