Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/449

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MORRIS
MORRIS

, from 1855 till 1859 to the Moyamensing house of industry, and from 1857 till 1872 to the Episcopal hospital. From October, 1862, till Au- gust, 1863, he served as contract surgeon in the army. From 1855 till 1863, inclusive, he examined, in connection with lectures on practice, materia medica, chemistry, and the institutes of medicine, in the University of Pennsylvania, and also lec- tured there on microscopic anatomy. He has re- ceived several patents for various inventions. His most important literary work has been his transla- tion from the German of Prof. C. G. Lehmann's "Manual of Chemical Physiology" (Philadelphia, 1856). He has also contributed largely to pro- fessional journals, and is the author of "The Milk- Supply of Large Cities " (Philadelphia, 1884) ; "The Water-Supply of Philadelphia"; "Annals of Hygiene " ; and " Report of Philadelphia Wa- ter Department " (1886).


MORRIS, Charles, naval officer, b. in Wood- stock, Comi., 36 July, 1784 ; d. in Washington, D. C, 27 Jan., 1856. He entered the navy, being made midshipman, 1 July, 1799, and, during the war with Tripoli in 1801-^5, served in the squad- ron under Com. Edward Pre- ble. He took part in the ex- pedition under Decatur that de- stroyed the frig- ate " Philadel- phia'" in the harbor of Trip- oli on the night of 15 Feb., 1804, and subsequent- ly captured a French priva- teer. In Janu- ary, 1807, he was promoted to

a lieutenancy,

and he was executive officer of the "Constitution" in July. 1812, when she was chased for sixty hours by a British ' fleet. In the following month, in the engagement between that vessel and the " Guerriere," he was severely wounded. On 5 March, 1813, he was pro- moted captain, passing the intermediate grade, and in 1814 was appointed to the command of the "John Adams," twenty-eight guns, in which ves- sel he cruised off the coasts of the United States and Ireland, greatly injuring British commerce. In August of the same year, when Capt. Morris had run up the Penobscot river, Maine, for repairs, a strong British force followed him with the design of effecting his capture. A detachment of militia that was sent to his relief having abandoned him, he was compelled to scuttle the vessel, while the crew made the best of its way in small parties over 200 miles of thinly settled country to Portland. In 1816-'17 he commanded the naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico, and in 1819-'20 a squadron on the coast of Buenos Ayres. From 1823 till 1827, and again from 1832 till 1841, he was navy commis- sioner, as such having a vote upon every important question of naval administration. In September and October, 1825, he was in command of the " Brandywine," in which Lafayette returned to France. He was afterward employed in inspecting the dock-yards of England and France. He had for many years supervision of the Naval academy at Annapolis, Md., and from 1851 until his death he was chief of the bureau of ordnance and hy- drography. Entering the navy at the most trying period of its history, when it had little support or encouragement from the government, when it was almost unknown to the country at large, and when its internal organization was loose and imperfect. Capt. Morris lived to see it in the height of its prosperity. For more than fifty years all his time, his thoughts, and his energies were devoted to pro- moting the growth and well-being of the service. As remarkable for judgment and self-control as he was for courage and zeal, he is regarded by many as the foremost man of the navy as it existed prior to the civil war. See his "Autobiography," pub- lished V)v the U. S. naval institute (Annapolis, 1880).


MORRIS, Charles D'Urban. educator, b. in Charmouth, Dorset. England, 17 Feb., 1827 ; d. in Baltimore. Md.. 7 Feb., 1886. He was graduated at Oxford in 1849, and three years later became a fellow of Oriel college. He came to the United States in 1853, was for a time rector of Trinity school in New York city, and subsequently master of a private school for boys at Lake Mohegan, near Peekskill, N. Y. He was then made a pro- fessor in the Univei'sity of the city of New York, and thence was called in 1876 to the chair of Latin and Greek in the Johns Hopkins university, which he held until his death. In his Latin and Attic Greek grammars Prof. Morris presented some origi- nal views of the proper methods of teaching the elements of those languages. He wrote various articles on philological topics, most of them con- tributed to the "American Journal of Philology" and to the American philological association, and published " Principia Latina " (New York, 1860) ; a revision of Bullions's " Principles of Latin Gram- mar" (1867); "A Compendious Grammar of Attic Greek" (1869; 4th ed., 1876); "A Compendious Grammar of the Latin Language " (1870 ; 4th ed., 1876); "Probatio Latina" (1871); "Latin Read- ing-Book " (1873) ; and " Parsing and Reading- Lessons," adapted to Morris's Latin-Greek gram- mars (1870-'3). He left an edition of the first book of Thucydides (Boston, 1887) and several translations, which remain unpublished.


MORRIS, Clara, actress, b. in Cleveland, Ohio, about 1846. At the age of fifteen, to assist her mother after her father's death, she became a member of the ballet corps at the Academy of music in Cleveland. Under the instruction of the manager she advanced rapidly, was promoted to leading juvenile lady, and in 1869 became leading lady at Wood's theatre, Cincinnati. In 1870 she went to New York and entered into an engagement at Daly's Fifth avenue theatre. She was there employed in comedy and smaller parts until, almost at the beginning of the season, a chance substituted her for the actress that was cast for Annie Sylvester in "Man and Wife." In this character her dramatic abilities were brilliantly displayed. She afterward appeared in "Divorce," and her reputation was increased bv her representation of Cora in "Article 47," Camille, Miss Multon, Alixe, in a translation of the "Comtesse de Sommerive," and Mercy Merrick in the stage version of Wilkie Collins's " New Magdalen." She excels in depicting grief and in the portrayal of death- bed scenes. When the theatre was burned, 1 Jan., 1873, she made a tour through the west with the rest of the company. She next appeared at the Union square theatre in "The Geneva Cross," and afterward from time to time at Daly's new theatre. In the winter of 1880 she filled an engagement in San Francisco. During the past ten or twelve years she