THE TOWN OF WEST FARMS. 455 



The next possessor of BroncKs land was Captain Richard Morris, 

 who must have purchased of Edsall, cir. 1670. Mr. Sparks says that 

 there was a contract dated the 10th of August, 1670, in which Richard 

 is styled " a merchant in New York," and Lewis, his brother, "a mer- 

 chant in Barbadoes." rt "It follows," remarks Dunlap, "that Richard 

 was in Barbacloes in 1670, and contracted to come on to New York to 

 purchase this grant of Morrisania for himself and brother, Lewis, who 

 was to follow and settle on it; but that he did not come until the peace 

 of 1674, when he found the son of his brother an orphan, took him 

 under his protection, and built at Morrisania.'' 6 



The Morris family are originally of Welch origin and of great anti- 

 quity, being lineally descended from " Rys, sometimes called Rice Fitz- 

 gerald, brother to Rhys Prince of Geventland, which Rys or Rice Fitz- 

 gerald was settled in Monmouthshire." "In 1171 Rice united with 

 Strongbow, Earl of Striquil and Pembroke, his neighbor, and landed at 

 Waterford in Ireland, with two hundred Knights and one thousand 

 archers, having been thereto authorized and encouraged by Henry II., 

 King of England and subdued the greatest part of that kingdom — which 

 extensive conquests occasioned the king to interfere and call them back, 

 and giving them some indemnification, appropriated their conquests to 

 the English crown." 



" For his warlike achievments Rys, the companion of Strongbow, was 

 for pre-eminence called Maur Rys, or Maur Rice, i e, the great Rys or 

 Rice. The word mawr or maur in Welch signifying great, and his de- 

 scendants dropping the name of Fitzgerald for this, ever after thought it 

 an honor to retain that addition ; and thus the name became Mawr Rys, 

 or Maurise, and finally Morris." 



About the middle of the fifteenth century a younger brother of the 

 family of this first Maurice, (still settled in Monmouthshire,) who was 

 named 'William, bore a commission in the army, and married a lady 

 of good fortune in Devonshire where he settled and had several 

 sons. 



"One of the descendants in 1623 — Sir William Mortice — as it was 

 then corruptly spelt, settled in Cornwall. In the year 1635 the elder 

 branch of the familv, the lineal descendants of the first Morris, still re- 



ft Articles of agreement were entered into between the two brothers, that if either of them 

 died without issue, the survivor, or issue of tue survivor, if any, should take the estate. 



b Dnnlap's Hist of N. Y , Vol. 1 , 2TB. 



c Account'of the family of Morris compiled by Valentine Morris in 1790, the original .V.SS. 

 is in th • pose --1 in of Harry M. Morris ol New York. Among the unprovided brethren of St. 

 David's < ollege, Pembrokeshire, i:i 1558, was Lewis Morris. one <>f the ministers who received 

 lion of £>". 13 —Hist, of St. David's cathedral, by Broun Willy. The arms of Rhys— ap— 

 Tewdmr .Mawr, (Prince of Wales in 1077,) were gu. or lion, rampant within a bordure, in- 

 dented, or. 



