54 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 
THE FOUNDER OF ARBOR DAY 
16. The second Secretary of Agriculture was J. STERLING Mor- 
TON, Nebraska City, Nebr. A practical farmer throughout the 
major portion of his life, he was a man of deep idealism and 
powerful instincts. His conception of “Arbor Day,” which ulti- 
mately became a national institution, resulted in the beautifica- 
tion of thousands of rural and urban homes, and tens of thou- 
sands of flourishing groves where once only the woodless prairies 
spread. 
SECRETARY Morton was born April 22, 1832, in Adams, N. Y., 
from a line of paternal ancestors whose Americanization dated 
back to the “Little Ann,” first ship to land after the Mayflower. 
When two years old, his parents emigrated to Monroe, Mich., at 
which place he received his common school education. In 1846 
he was sent to a Methodist seminary at Albion, Mich., to prepare 
for the state university, but while he spent most of his time at 
Ann Arbor, he ultimately received his degree at Union College 
in 1854. The following fall he married CaRoLINnE Joy FRENcH 
of Detroit and removed with her to Bellevue in the then territory 
of Nebraska. The situation did not prove successful, however, 
and after a few months he located near the site of what is now 
Nebraska City. He became a member of the town company, and 
took up a claim of a quarter section bordering on the townsite. 
Arbor Lodge, as the estate was called, was his home continuously 
thereafter. 
Mr. Morton was an original member of the Nebraska Terri- 
torial Board of Agriculture, and of the Territorial Horticultural 
Society. He was a charter member of the Nebraska State His- 
torical Society and at one time its president. In 1889 he was 
one of the American Commissioners to the Paris Exposition, 
and was always prominent in Nebraska political life. He was 
appointed secretary of the Nebraska Territory in 1858 and 
under the law became its acting governor on the resignation of 
