Representative Lewis Richard Morris

Lewis Richard Morris (November 2, 1760 – December 29, 1825) was an American lawyer, businessman, militia officer, and Federalist politician who served three terms as a United States Representative from Vermont. He was born in Scarsdale in the Province of New York to Sarah Ludlow (1730–1791) and Richard Morris (1730–1810). His father later became Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, serving from 1779 to 1790, and the family was part of a prominent political lineage. Morris was a nephew of Gouverneur Morris, a leading statesman and framer of the Constitution, and of Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He attended the common schools in his youth.

During the American Revolutionary War, while still in his teens, Morris entered public service in a military capacity. He served as an aide to General Philip Schuyler and later to General George Clinton, who would go on to become governor of New York and vice president of the United States. These early experiences in the Revolutionary cause introduced him to high-level military and political affairs and helped shape his subsequent career in law, public administration, and politics.

Morris’s early public career included service as Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 1781 to 1783, a position he held during the closing years of the Revolutionary era. In 1786 he moved to Springfield in the Vermont Republic, where he established himself as a businessman, landowner, and local political leader. He quickly became active in town affairs, serving on the Springfield meeting-house committee in 1785 and as tax collector in 1786 and 1787. He was elected a selectman on the town council in 1788 and served as town treasurer from 1790 to 1794. At the county level, Morris was clerk of the Windsor County court from 1789 to 1796 and then served as a judge of the Windsor County court until 1801, consolidating his standing as a legal and civic figure in the region.

Morris also played a significant role in Vermont’s transition from an independent republic to statehood within the United States. He was clerk of the Vermont House of Representatives in 1790 and 1791 and participated in the convention to ratify the United States Constitution. He attended the Vermont ratifying convention in Bennington, where he voted in support of the Constitution, and later served as secretary of the constitutional convention in Windsor in 1793. On March 4, 1791, shortly after Vermont was admitted as the fourteenth state, President George Washington appointed him the first United States Marshal for the District of Vermont. Morris held this federal law-enforcement post until 1794, when he was succeeded by his deputy, Jabez G. Fitch.

In addition to his civil offices, Morris had a long career in the Vermont militia. He was commissioned a brigadier general in the state militia in 1793 and advanced to major general of the First Division, a position he held from 1795 to 1817. His militia service spanned the early national period and encompassed the years leading up to and including the War of 1812, reflecting his continued involvement in the defense and military organization of the state. Concurrently, he remained active in legislative affairs. He served in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1795 to 1797 and again from 1803 to 1808, during which time he also held the position of speaker, further cementing his influence in state politics.

Morris’s national legislative career began with his election as a member of the Federalist Party to the United States House of Representatives. He was elected to the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Congresses and served from May 22, 1797, to March 3, 1803, representing Vermont. His three terms in Congress coincided with a formative period in the early republic, spanning the administrations of John Adams and the early years of Thomas Jefferson. As a Federalist representative from Vermont, he contributed to the legislative process during a time of intense debate over foreign policy, the scope of federal power, and the nation’s financial and institutional development. Throughout his tenure, he participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Vermont constituents in the national legislature.

In his personal life, Morris married three times. He married Mary Dwight, the daughter of Timothy and Mary Edwards Dwight, thereby linking himself to another prominent New England family. After her, he married Hulda Theodosia Olcott, who died soon after their marriage. He later married Ellen Hunt, the daughter of Jonathan Hunt Sr., further connecting him to leading families in the region. These marriages reflected the social and political networks that underpinned much of the leadership class in early New England and Vermont.

Lewis Richard Morris died on December 29, 1825, in Springfield, Vermont. He was interred at Forest Hill Cemetery in Charlestown, New Hampshire. His career, spanning local, state, and federal service—as town officer, county judge, state legislator and speaker, militia general, U.S. marshal, and member of Congress—placed him among the notable public figures of Vermont and the early United States.