Plymouth memories of an octogenarianDavis, William T. (William Thomas)
History
Plymouth memories of an octogenarian
Davis, William T. (William Thomas)
Plymouth (Mass.) -- History
I tell thee Poverty that you and I
Have friendly met together;
Thou art the soul of minstrelsy
In every kind of weather.
Through all life’s journey thou hast not
From me an hour departed;
Thou never hast my track forgot,
Which proves thee most true hearted.
I have two letters from Mr. Bartlett to my grandfather, William
Davis, soliciting aid, and one to my grandfather from President
Kirkland of Harvard University, inclosing thirteen dollars
contributed by a few Cambridge gentlemen with the request that
he would use it for Mr. Bartlett’s benefit. He married Anna May,
daughter of Thomas Witherell of Plymouth, and died in Boston, October
21, 1827.
Of Perez Morton, a Plymouth man, and one of the most distinguished
members of the Massachusetts bar in the latter part of the eighteenth
century, and the first half of the nineteenth, probably few of my
Plymouth readers have ever heard. He was son of Joseph and Amiah
(Bullock) Morton of Plymouth, and was born October 22, 1750. He
graduated at Harvard in 1771, and was recommended to be sworn as
attorney in 1774. In 1786 he was made a Barrister, and on the 7th
of September, 1810, he was appointed Attorney General. At the time
of the appointment of Mr. Morton as Attorney General, the office
of Solicitor General was occupied by Daniel Davis, who had been
appointed January 20, 1802, under an act passed March 4, 1800,
reviving the office which had been discontinued for a time after
the revolution. In 1821 it having been the general feeling for some
time that the two offices were unnecessary, the legislature, while
unwilling on account of the respect entertained for their incumbents,
to abolish either, passed an act providing “that whenever the office
of Attorney General or Solicitor General shall become vacant by
death, resignation or otherwise, the salary annexed to the office,
which shall first so become vacant as aforesaid, shall thenceforth
cease and determine.” As neither death nor resignation occurred, an
act was passed March 14, 1832, to take effect June 1, abolishing
both offices and establishing the office of Attorney General for
the Commonwealth. On the 31st of May, therefore, 1832, Mr. Morton
went out of office, and James T. Austin was appointed under the new
law, Attorney General of the Commonwealth. Sarah Morton, the wife of
Perez, was an authoress of some repute. She wrote a book entitled,
“The power of Sympathy,” a copy of which is in the library of the
Pilgrim Society, which is claimed to have been the first American
novel. Mr. Morton died in Boston, October 14, 1837.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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