Augustus Newbold Morris


Augustus Newbold Morris or A. N. Morris was a prominent American during the Gilded Age in New York City.

Early life

Morris was born on June 3, 1838. He was the son of William Henry Morris and Hannah Cornell Newbold. His brothers were James Staats Morris and William H. Morris Jr., both of whom died unmarried. After his mother's early death in 1842, his father remarried to Caroline Halsted. They did not have any children, however, his father had two daughters with his third wife, Ella Birckhead. They were: Augusta McEvers Morris, who married Frederic J. De Peyster, and Juliet Birckhead Morris, who married Philip Livingston in 1890. His father was the sixth proprietor of Morissania, the family estate in what later became the Bronx.
His paternal grandparents were Helen Morris and James Morris, High Sheriff of New York. His grandfather was a son, making Augustus a direct descendant of, Lewis Morris, signor of the Declaration of Independence, from the prominent Colonial-era Morris family of the Morrisania section of the Bronx. His maternal grandparents were Thomas Newbold and Catherine Augusta LeRoy.

Career

Morris graduated from Columbia College in 1860, and later, Columbia Law School.
Morris was considered a "man of leisure," but worked nevertheless. He was a manager of the Home for Incurables at Fordham, a director of the Zoological Society, and a vice-president of the Plaza Bank.
While he did not hold office, he was considered an Independent Democrat.

Society life

In 1892, Morris and his wife were both included in Ward McAllister's "Four Hundred", purported to be an index of New York's best families, published in The New York Times.
He was a governor, and one of the founders, of the Metropolitan Club, a member of the Union Club of New York, president of the Suburban Riding and Driving Club, president of the Ridgefield Club, a director of the Coney Island Jockey Club, a director of the National Horse Show Association, a member of the Riding Club, the Automobile Club, and the Delta Phi fraternity.

Personal life

On December 10, 1862, Morris was married to Eleanor Colford Jones. She was the daughter of General James I. Jones and Elizabeth Jones, the older sister of Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, also known as "The Mrs. Astor," Mrs. Charles Suydam, and Mrs. John Treat Irving. Her father's country home became Jones's Wood. Together, they were the parents of:
His wife died at their home, 19 East 64th Street, in April 1906, and Morris died shortly thereafter on September 1, 1906, at his country home in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Descendants

Through his son Augustus, he was the grandfather of Augustus Newbold Morris, who was a lawyer, president of the New York City Council, and two-time candidate for mayor of New York City, George Lovett Kingsland Morris, a painter who married Suzy Frelinghuysen, and Stephanus "Stephen" Van Cortlandt Morris, a diplomat.