MORTON THRALL ELLIOTT

Sep 3 1954
Morton Thrall Elliott, 75, a retired Harmony township farmer and
Hereford cattle breeder of Midwest reputation and a scion of one of Posey county's mot prominent families, died peacefully in his sleep early this morning at Welborn Memorial Baptist Hospital in Evansville.

Death was the result of a complication of diseases which had hospitalized him several times in the last two years and which had forced his retirment.  For the last two years he and his wife had resided in
Evansville.  He entered the hospital 10 days ago from their residence at 826 South Governor street.

The body is at the Shoulz-Werry Funeral Home in
New Harmony.

A family service at the Shoultz Werry chapel at
2 p.m. Sunday will precede a service at 2:30 p.m. at Johnson Memorial Methodist Church in New Harmony of which Mr. Elliott and his wife were members.  Burial  will be in the Elliott family plot in Maple Hill cemetery.

Surviving are the wife, Lou Bailey Elliott, whose marriage to Mr. Elliott took place 43 years ago; a brother, Elmer E Elliott,
New Harmony, who observed his 89th birthday last Friday, a sister, Mrs. Joseph E. Kelley, Mt. Vernon, and nieces and nephews. - Miss Helen Elliott, and John B. Elliott, New Harmony; Mrs Willis Hickam Spencer; Mrs. Ray C. Thomas, Gary; Mrs. W. A. Riggs, Green Bay Wis.; Mrs. William Long, New York and Nelson E. Kelley Mt. Vernon.

Mr. Elliott was the youngest child of John Bennett Elliott and Helen Augusta Soper Elliott representatives of two families identified with the beginning of
New Harmony.  His great-grandfather, James Elliott, was an officer in the Robert Owen Community.

He was born and had spent his entire life in the same home on the picturesque family homestead three miles south of New Harmony on State Road 69,.  One of his most prized possessions was a bronze plaque awarded by the Indiana Historical Society to families owning farms more than a hundred years.  The farm originally was the property of his maternal grandfather Virgil Soper.

Mr. Elliott attended
New Harmony schools and Purdue University in preparation for an agricultural and livestock producing career to which he dedicated his industrious life.

As a successful farmer and livestock producer he achieved much prominence.  He was one of the Tri-State's early breeders of purebred Polled Hereford cattle and, the strain of cattle he produced found its way onto some of the leading livestock farms of the Central States.

One of his noteworth agricultural accomplishments that attracted widespread attention including that the
Purdue University was his conversion of eroded hillsides into profitable locust groves.

Although he had identified with the agricultural and civic progress of Posey county for more than half a century he shunned public life.  At one time, however, he was a member and president of the New Harmony-Harmony Township Consolidated School board of trustees and for many years was a trustee of Maple Hill Cemetery Association.  He was a member of the board of directors of Posey County Farm Bureau Coop from 1935 to 1941.

His only fraternal affiliation at the time of his death was with the
New Harmony lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

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Originally submitted by Betty Sellers