Elizabeth Ann Morris

BY DARYL JAMES

9 MARCH 2002

Elizabeth Wanslee was born 14 May 1828 in the area known today as Gordon County, Georgia, to Nathan Whitten Wanslee and Grizzel Elizabeth Turner. Gordon County, established in 1850, was created from parts of Cass and Floyd counties and was named in honor of William Washington Gordon, the first president of the Georgia Central Railroad. Elizabeth was the oldest of 11 children in a family comprised of seven boys and four girls. Her ancestors were Southerners from South Carolina and Virginia.

    Many Cherokee lived in the area and used the land originally as a hunting ground. In 1825 the Cherokee Nation established its capital nearby at New Echota and adopted a constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution. The tribe held its first election in 1828, the year Elizabeth was born. Conflicts increased in Gordon County between the white settlers and the Cherokee until the federal government forced the relocation of the tribe to Oklahoma in 1838. This is what historians refer to as the Trail of Tears.

    Elizabeth likely would have witnessed the beginning of this conflict in her childhood, although the political stand her parents took on the relocation is unknown. Regardless, the issue would have been of great interest to them.

    Vital records suggest the Wanslee family moved from Georgia in the 1840s to Alabama and then returned to Georgia. But little information exists on Elizabeth's childhood and family. The editors of Roadside Georgia say Gordon County remained agricultural prior to the Civil War, although the Western and Atlantic Railway stimulated some industry after 1848.  Most likely, therefore, Elizabeth's father would have been a farmer. Her mother died in 1848 at age 42 when Elizabeth was 20, and her father eventually married a widow named Nancy Morris. Little is known about this marriage, which most likely took place after 1860.

    On 6 Jan. 1852, Elizabeth married Gadison "Gad" Morris in Rome, Floyd County, Georgia. Elizabeth was 23 at the time and Gad was about 21. Their first six children were born in Floyd County or neighboring Gordon County between 1853 and 1860. Then the Civil War broke out. Gad enlisted as a private in Company C, 40th Infantry Regiment of the Confederate Army on 1 May 1862, while residing at Floyd County, Georgia. Elizabeth was nearly 34 at this time and pregnant with the couple's seventh child, John Wesley Morris, who was born 4 Nov. 1862.

    Apparently, the Union army captured Gad shortly after his enlistment. Union records list him as a prisoner of war on 4 July 1863 at Vicksburg, Mass., and indicate he was paroled two days later. His war record during the next year is uncertain, although he must have had some contact with Elizabeth because she got pregnant about January 1864. Records list Gad as a P.O.W. again on 15 July 1864 at Floyd County, Ga. Later that month, on 27 July 1864, he took an Oath of Allegiance at Louisville, Ky., and was released on condition that he remain north of the Ohio River. It is unclear whether he was home with Elizabeth when their eighth child, William Morris, was born 16 Sept. 1864 in Rome, Floyd County.

    After the war the couple had two more children in Georgia and then moved to Des Arc, Prarie County, Ark., where their final child, Cicero Morris, was born 12 Sept. 1871. Gad and Elizabeth belonged to a Protestant chuch in Arkansas and treated the pastor with kindness. But when missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to the area in the 1870s, Gad and Elizabeth accepted their message. They were taught by Henry G. Boyle, John McCallister and possibly John Wimmer. Church records indicate that Elizabeth was baptized first and that Gad and all of the couple's living children followed on 1 March 1877, weeks before the family left Arkansas with a company of Saints headed West. At least two of Elizabeth's brothers, Jesse Cleveland and Nathan Terry Wanslee, lived in the area and also joined the Church about this time. It is also possible that her father joined the Church, although he does not appear to be part of the Mormon company that left Arkansas in 1877.

    The Arkansas Travelers Party numbered some 140 converts and included 36 wagons. Gad and Elizabeth and their children put everything they owned into two small wagons that Gad had constructed. They followed the company west to Trinidad, Colo., where the party separated. One group went to Utah while another group, including the Morris family and certain Wanslee families, passed through Santa Fe and Albuquerque and settled in Savoia, N.M. (today known as Ramah). Here an epidemic of smallpox swept through the settlement. Many died, including Elizabeth's 24-year-old sister-in-law, Malinda Ann Evans (wife of Jesse Cleveland Wanslee). Five days after giving birth to a daughter, Malinda died and was buried on 10 Feb. 1878 at Savoia.

    After the smallpox passed, the company regrouped and continued west into Arizona, finally settling along the Little Colorado River at Brigham City. This settlement, founded two years earlier in 1876, operated in part under the United Order system. There was a fort 200 feet square, with sandstone walls seven feet high. Inside were 36 dwelling houses, each 15 by 13 feet. On the north side was the dining hall, 80 by 20 feet, with two rows of tables, to seat more than 150 persons. Adjoining was a kitchen, 25 by 20 feet, with an annexed bakehouse. Four women were called to be in charge of the kitchen, with others rotating to help them. A cellar, storehouse and a well were inside the enclosure and another well was outside near the kitchen. Other houses were built outside the fort. To the south were corrals and stockyards. The main industry was the farming of 274 acres, more than half in wheat. Milk and cheese were secured from the communal dairy at Dairy Spring. Wood was supplied by the communal sawmill near present day Mormon Lake, Ariz. J.A Woods taught the first school. Jesse O. Ballenger, the first leader, was succeeded in 1878 by George Lake about the time Elizabeth and Gad arrived with their party.

    Gad did not live long in Brigham City, however. One day after working in the field, he complained to Elizabeth that he wasn't feeling well. Without eating supper, he went to bed. After Elizabeth finished her spinning and the wheel was quiet, she called to her husband to inquire about how he was feeling. There was no answer. She called again and receiving no reply, she went to his bedside to find that he had passed away, probably of a heart attack. This was 21 March 1878.

    By 1881, because of several years of crop failures due to the dams they built washing out, the people of Brigham City were released from their callings and sent to other settlements. Elizabeth, along with her children and some of her Wanslee relatives, finally settled at Safford, Graham County, Ariz. Here she died on 8 Oct. 1888 at age 60. 

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Nov 18 2020, 19:32:45 UTC