William C. Morrison

Submitted by: William Clark Morrison
5th, 30 April, 2005

WILLIAM CLARK MORRISON I: According to an early family group record, he was born on January 9, 1784 in Pennsylvania. No more specific location of his origin has been identified, nor are his parents known, although family tradition says we are Scotch or Scotch-Irish. As a young man William surfaced in the area of Cincinnati, Ohio. On October 8, 1799, the Western Spy And Hamilton Gazette carried a notice that mail was being held at the Cincinnati post office for (among others) William Morrison, in care of D. Symmes. (Symmes was the sheriff in Cincinnati and also the Register of the federal General Land Office in that town.)

On January 20, 1807 WCM I was married to Miss Elizabeth Debolt by Judge James Clark. Elizabeth Debolt, born in Ohio November 6, 1793, was the daughter of Michael Debolt, Esq. of Anderson Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. WCM I and Elizabeth are believed to have lived in Anderson Township or Cincinnati, where at least the first four of his eleven children were born. The first son was named after his grandfather Michael Debolt. There was a W.C. Morrison on the 1810 tax roll for Anderson Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. William Clark Morrison of Hamilton County subscribed to The Christians' Guide in 1819.

About 1819 or 1820 the family moved to Brownstown, Jackson County, Indiana, and engaged in agriculture. The family stayed there for some years as shown by the 1820, 1830 and 1840 census records. In 1836 he entered the SE1/4 SE1/4 of Section 28, T.5N., R4.E and received patent to that 40 acres in 1838. This was near the land patented to Henry Boas, whose family later intermarried with the Morrisons. Children born to them in Jackson County were Rachel Ann, Mary, Elizabeth, George W., Alexander, Nancy Caroline and Henry C. The family and three of the children removed to Marengo, Iowa County, Iowa to be enumerated there in the 1850 census, listed as farmers. In the spring of 1852 WCM I and Elizabeth then moved to the Tama County, Iowa.. They had taken a claim and done breaking there in the fall of 1851. Elizabeth died there March 11, 1853 at age 59. WCM I died there on Christmas, December 25, 1855 at age 71. Both are buried in the Walz/Randolph cemetery said to be located on the old homestead in Section 12 of Columbia Township, Tama County.

WILLIAM CLARK MORRISON JR. (II), called "Clark", son of WCM I and Elizabeth, was born September 5, 1817 in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio. Before the age of two he moved with the family to Jackson County where he grew up. He married Judith Boas there August 3, 1843. By 1850 they were living in Marengo, Iowa County, Iowa in close proximity to his father (WCM I) and family. Judith bore eleven children over a period of twenty years.

Clark Morrison continued to drift west and died of "old age" November 27, 1897 in Norfolk, Nebraska. Judith died June 9, 1902 in Canon City, Colorado where some of her children then lived.