Jeremiah Morton
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Jeremiah Morton | |
|---|---|
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 9th district | |
| In office March 4, 1849 – March 3, 1851 | |
| Preceded by | John Pendleton |
| Succeeded by | James F. Strother |
| Personal details | |
| Born | September 3, 1799 |
| Died | November 28, 1878 (aged 79) "Lessland", Orange County, Virginia, US |
| Party | Whig |
| Alma mater | Washington College College of William and Mary |
| Profession | politician, lawyer, farmer |
Jeremiah Morton (September 3, 1799 – November 28, 1878) was a nineteenth-century politician, lawyer, physician and architect from Virginia.[1] He was a younger brother of Florida senator Jackson Morton.
Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to wealthy landowner Jeremiah Morton and his wife, the former Mildred Garnett Jackson, young Jeremiah attended a private school in Culpeper Virginia, a few years behind Congressman John Strode Barbour, as would his brother George Morton.[2] This Morton then attended Washington College in Lexington 1814 and 1815 before traveling eastward to Williamsburg for studies at the College of William and Mary, from which he graduated in 1819. He read law.
He married Mary Eleanor Jane Smith (1801-1876), daughter of Reuben Smith and his wife Milly, whose brothers moved to Texas before the Civil War. Their only surviving child, Mildred, married lawyer J.J. Halsey of Orange County, Virginia.[3]
Career
After admission to the Virginia bar, Morton began his legal practice in Raccoon Ford on the Rapidan River, and traveled to nearby county seats. Morton also was a physician and architect. He ultimately left his peripatetic legal career due to illness and instead ran several prosperous plantations using enslaved labor, as well as built mansions for other wealthy planters, as well as sponsored artists who came to the area.[4] Morton owned 6 slaves in Henrico County, Virginia in 1840, when he lived in Richmond.[5] According to the 1850 U.S. Federal Census, Morton owned 21 slaves in Culpeper County.[6] In 1860, he owned 66 slaves in Orange County, Virginia, 19 of them under age 10.[7]
Morton ran as a Whig and won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1848. He succeeded John S. Pendleton, a Democrat from Culpeper, but would only serve on term, from 1849 to 1851. After losing a reelection bid in 1850 to James F. Strother a Whig from Rappahannock County, Morton concentrated on his and others' plantations. An owner of several prosperous plantations, Morton reputedly had an income of the "then-princely" $30,000 (~$820,131 in 2024) a year.[8]
