4S2 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



from his Academic pursuits in 1746 he became a farmer in his native 

 town, he was opulent and desired no addition to his fortune ; but in the 

 struggle against the mother country his sympathies were for his native 

 land. He was a Brigader-General of the Continental army, and at 

 one time received orders from Congress to take possession, (with 

 his whole Brigade,) of such parts of the Sound and Hudson River as he 

 might think most exposed to the enemy. In 1775 he was sent from New 

 York to the Continental Congress where he distinguished himself — 

 being appointed to confer with the Aborigines and to bring them over 

 to the American side. He was in Congress in 1776, and his name is 

 in the great cluster of patriots attached to the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence. In 1777 he issued an address, or appeal, to the citizens of New 

 York on the constitution proposed by Convention of the United States 

 for their future government in that year. In 1798 he died at his farm 

 in old Morrisania, in the seventy-second year of his age. 



Gen. Staats Long Morris was born on the 27th of August, 1728, and 

 educated at Yale College. Having entered the army, he became Cap- 

 tain in the Thirty-sixth Regiment of Foot on the 31st of May, 1756, and 

 attained the rank of Major in 1758. Government having resolved the 

 following year to raise an additional regiment of Highlanders, by the in- 

 fluence of the Gordon family — at the solicitation of the Dowager Duchess 

 of Gordon, Major Morris, to whom she had been lately married, was 

 appointed to raise that regiment, in which the Duke entered as Captain; 

 Lord William, as Lieutentant ; and Lord George, as Ensign. In a few 

 weeks seven hundred and sixty men were mustered and marched to 

 Aberdeen, and Major Morris received a commission as Lieutenant- 

 Colonel of the new corps, which was called the Eighty-ninth Highland 

 Regiment, with it he embarked in December, 1760, for the East Indies; 

 arrived at Bombay in November following, and served at the siege of 

 Pondicherry in 1761. On the 7th of July, 1763, he was appointed to 

 the local rank of Brigadier-General, and on the return of the regiment 

 to England it was reduced in 1765, and its Lieutenant-Colonel went on 

 half pay, where he continued until 1778.'' It is said that upon receiv- 

 ing an order from the British Government to repair to America he re- 

 turned his commission, whereupon they appointed him Commander on 

 Cock's Heath during the remainder of the war. '• He became Major- 

 General in 1777, and was appointed Colonel of the Sixty-first, or South 

 Gloucestershire, Regiment in 1778. He rose to the rank of General in 

 the British army in 1796, received the sinecure appointment of Governor 

 of Quebec in 1797, and died in the early part of the year 1800 in the 

 seventy-second year of his age. General Morris was twice married; 



