John Wesley Morris

In 1869, Wesley Morris (so listed in census) was born in Outagamie County, Wisconsin. By the 1890 census, his older brother, Jonathan Morris, had died - or at least was not mentioned in the census, and "Wesley was given, or took, the name John Wesley Morris. From a young age, he worked the Wisconsin rivers as a "river pig," jumping from log to log during log drives on the rivers and living in a floating wannigan (shack on a raft).

In the late 1880s or early 1890s John Wesley Morris met Dorthea, an orphan whose family had died in an epidemic. She was ethnically Dutch and worked at a roadhouse. John's family, members in good standing of the Methodist Episcopal Church, did not feel that he should be seeing someone who worked at a roadhouse as that was considered an unsavory occupation at the time. John, who appears to have been very good looking, in his earliest photos, must have seen something in her. Dorthea just wanted someone to love her.

According to family tradition, related by Don Morris of Blaine, MN, a descendent of George Morris, John Wesley’s brother - John Wesley Morris faked a suicide, going off to marry Dorthea, leaving his shoes, clothing, and a suicide note beside a river. He did not have contact with his sisters or brothers again until the very end of his life.

John Wesley Morris Sr and Dorthea were married and he worked logging and as a "river pig."

In Ashland, WI, in 1898, they had a daughter, Vivian. The second child, Eva, died at age seven.

The third child, Acel, died at three months.   In 1903 in Blueberry, WI they had a son, John Wesley Morris Jr, also known as "Jack."   Daniel Webster Morris was born in 1905,  Thomas Edison Longfellow Morris was born in 1906.  Goldie Esther Morris was born in 1907,  Abraham Lincoln Morris was born in 1908,  Dorothy Evangeline Morris was born in 1909,  Hope Eunice Morris was born in 1913,  Gladys Edna Morris was born in 1915,  Wesley Whitcomb Riley Morris was born in 1919.

In about 1910, John Wesley Morris Sr began logging in northeast Minnesota. His first job was a contract to clear the right of way for the Duluth & Northern Minnesota Railroad (Alger Smith). He also cut 65 foot pilings for the Two Island River trestle. Eventually, he had a large camp with 200 men working for him. They mainly cut white pine. While the pilings were being knocked into the Two Island River, the pile driver head missed the piling and sank 25 feet into the muck. It is still there today.

Milepost 69, of the Duluth & Northern Minnesota RR, near the Morris homestead, was known as "Morris Station."

In 1911, the rest of the family made their way north from Superior, WI on the Booth Line ship, "America." The America now lies sunk in Washington Harbor at Isle Royal.

When the family made their trip up the north shore on the America, the forest was cut down as far as Two Harbors. North of Two Harbors, the whole shoreline was virgin timber. When Jack, John Wesley's eldest son, was next in Two Harbors, at age 18, all the virgin forest along the shore had been cut.

They got off the ship at Split Rock on Minnesota's north shore of Lake Superior. The lighthouse was under construction, not yet finished, but there was an "elevator," which consisted of a platform raised by a crane. This was known as the "Splitrock Elevator.”

When the America hove to out from Split Rock, a skiff came out to take off passengers. Jack Morris said passengers had to climb part way down the side of the ship on a rope ladder, then jump into the skiff when the wave brought the skiff and ship close enough. He said one lady, with many layers of petticoats, was very scared and wouldn't jump when told to do so. When she finally worked up her courage to jump, the men would tell her, "Not now!" She finally did jump and missed the boat. The oarsmen in the skiff had a hard time getting her in the skiff as the many layers of petticoats were drenched and made her very heavy.

From Split Rock, the family walked 50 miles to the homestead on Hare Lake. John Wesley Morris was running the logging camp, and had employed two Finns for two years to build the homestead. The homestead was a hewn dovetailed log building. The floor boards and roof boards were wide planks, three inches thick, of white pine. There was also a barn and other outbuildings.

The barn housed their horses, Duke, a blue roan Percheron, and General Joffre, and their cows, Babe and Bossie. There were also dogs, Neewah and Rover, and a cat, Thomas Lover-Doll.

Duke, the blue roan, was so smart he could be hitched up to a log at a cutting area and he would haul the log to the landing, by himself, and unhitch himself from the log and return to the cutting area for another log. If the log got stuck between the cutting area and the landing, he would back up and kick at the log until it got loose and he could resume hauling.

The homestead was in an area of land covered by virgin white pine. There was only white pine in this tract, east of Hare Lake, no underbrush, or other types of trees - except cedars along the streams and rivers and around the lakes. The tract of white pine was 13 miles by nine miles, and Jack Morris never thought it would all be cut, but in three years it was all gone.

Jack Morris learned many things from his father, John Wesley. He learned how to log; how to fell trees and buck them. He learned how to hew logs and how to saw planks from a hewn log with a pit saw. He also became a part of his environment. He observed, from an early age, the ways of the forest, the animals and plants, and the lay of the land.

John Wesley taught Jack how to make dugout canoes. Jack said, "You shape the outside of the log to a canoe shape, then you drill small holes every so often and put a premeasured stick up in the hole. This allows you to gage the thickness of the hull once you start shaping the inside. You hew out the inside of the canoe with an adze. You further shape it with a chisel, and finish it with sand and a brick. Once you have the canoe completely shaped, you fill it with water, and heat the water to boiling by building a fire over rocks. When the rocks are hot, you pick them up with two antler sheds, and place the hot rocks in the water until it boils. Then you wedge the sides apart until the canoe widens out and takes the shape you want. You may have to repeat this step several times.

The dugout canoe Jack most often used was named "The Lone Trapper." The reason for the name? It was so tippy, only one person could be in it at a time.

Jack and his brothers spent a lot of time in the woods. At some point during World War I, Germans who weren't yet citizens were not allowed to have guns, and John Wesley Morris bought a Winchester rifle for Jack from a German national. As Jack was very young, he was not allowed to take the gun out by himself. Jack did take the gun out by himself several times. When he came back empty-handed, he got a "whuppin." When he came back with game, his father congratulated him, but sternly told him not to do it again. Getting game was very important for the family's welfare. After that, Jack made sure he came back with game.

One evening, a moose walked through the clearing. Jack took the rifle and with his young brother, Lincoln, they snow-shoed east following the tracks in the snow. They went over one rise, then a second. It was getting dark. Lincoln had a lantern, and when they cleared the second rise, they could see the moose's eyes. Jack moved forward to get a better shot, but then he could only see one eye. There was apparently a tree in the way. Jack thought the eye he could see must be the right eye and shot accordingly. He was wrong. The bullet grazed the moose's snout. The moose charged Lincoln and knocked him down. Jack levered in another shell and swung the gun and shot, one handed, without aiming. The moose was killed and fell over – just as it was about to stomp Lincoln. Jack didn't tell his father about the incident until much later.

The Morris family never really hunted. They just carried their guns with them, wherever they went, and shot game when they saw it. Once, when he was a little older, Jack was in a canoe. He saw geese, and pulled his "six shooter shotgun (a six shot model 1887 Winchester 10 gage lever action) towards him. It discharged when the hammer caught on the canoe ribs, and blew off Jack's shirt.

Another time, Jack and his father, John Wesley, were camping near a lake. When they awakened, the lake was covered with ducks. John Wesley Morris Sr had a double barrel 12 gage Parker shotgun and Jack had his six shooter shotgun. Because the damp had swelled the cardboard cartridges, John Sr was only able to get off the two shots with his double barrel and Jack was only able to get off one ten gage round. They shot 28 ducks with three shots.

Jack and his brother Lincoln spent a lot of time together in the woods. This is somewhat surprising as Jack was the oldest boy and Lincoln was the second to the youngest. Daniel, the second oldest boy was an avid reader and would rather have his nose in a book.

On one snow-shoe trek during the winter, Jack and Linc were out for two weeks, exploring areas you couldn't easily get to in the summer. At night, they would dig a trench in the snow, cover the bottom of the trench with spruce or fir boughs to lie on, and cover the top of the trench with boughs and a scrap of canvas. One problem, once you got situated at the bottom of the trench, it always seemed like you had to urinate. Getting back out of the trench to do so was a big problem. Jack started carrying an empty bottle to deal with this problem.

At the end of their two week trek, Jack and Linc found themselves on a lake where they knew their brother-in-law, Tord Johnson, and Tord's friend, Cy Young, had a shack. They found the shack and cut hole in the lake in front of the shack to get water for coffee. They were in the bunks, sound asleep, when Tord and Cy threw the door open and rushed in, guns at the ready. They'd snowshoed up to the shack and Tord had fallen through the hole in the ice. Sure their shack had been taken over by strangers, they'd rushed in, madder than hornets.

Jack never saw a deer until he was 18 years old. The north country, where he lived, was moose country and deer did not appear in that area until large amounts of forest had been logged off.

In his later years, Jack commented that deer did not have as much stamina as a man in good condition. He said he'd once run down a deer, taking a whole day, and killed it with a knife. Jack was amused by hunters who came to the north woods with large caliber rifles, stating they needed a big gun to kill moose. Jack knew moose were more easily brought down than deer. Moose can't run on three legs.

One of the people the family did know was "Grandma Baker." Suzanne Artichone Baker was an Ojibwe woman from Red Cliff Reservation. When the government was taking Indian kids and sending them, forcibly, if necessary, off to government school, Grandma Baker gathered up her grandchildren and great grandchildren and crossed Lake Superior from the south shore to the north shore and lived with them back in the woods on the east end of Wilson Lake. Back in the woods she hoped her brood would be safe from the clutches of the government school officials. When the "Morris School" opened (the Morris kids were the only students), Joe Soulier, one of Grandma Baker's grandchildren, would sneak down to the school to be with the other kids. Grandma Baker, afraid her grandson would somehow be spirited away by government school officials, would come down to the school and yell "WAUGIDEE, PEINDIGAY (which means "Little Turtle, Come Home,” or “Come In.”). Joe would always respond, under his breath, "Aniibiish Nokomis! (which means "No good Grandma.”).

Much of the food they ate came from the forest. In 1918, there was a blight of the reign deer moss and they never saw caribou again after that year. Before the blight, the caribou would suddenly appear in droves and it was wise to get behind a tree so you wouldn't get run over.

They would get canoe loads of large fish. In later years, Jack Morris did not think of this as fishing. He referred to it as "Getting Food." They also relied on moose. If they didn't get enough moose, they didn't eat well. By the time Jack Morris moved out of the woods in 1929, he had 14 notches under the butt plate of his Winchester rifle – one for each moose he'd shot.

One time, the game warden showed up at the homestead at Hare Lake. Dorthea had a large corn boiler full of moose meat. It was illegal to shoot moose without a license, yet the Morris family needed the moose for food. Dorthea quickly took the boiler and, sitting on a chair, placed the boiler on her lap with her long skirt over it." John Wesley Morris Sr asked the game warden if he'd like to sit down for a meal of "beef." The warden did so, and allowed it was the best "beef" he'd tasted in a while. As he was leaving, he said, with a twinkle in his eye, "Mrs. Morris, I didn't know you were pregnant."

Taking moose in the forest made for a tough and gory butchering problem. An adult bull moose often weighed as much as 1200 pounds. Once the moose was down, dressing the moose required slitting the belly and propping the rear legs up like an A-frame to remove the 250 pounds of guts. A lot of times, it was “just crawl on up into the body cavity and pull the guts out.” When a Morris would skin the moose, they often removed the hide off the leg in one piece to make winter moccasins. The hide from the moose leg was fleshed and worked until dry – often without any tanning or curing. The “toe” was sewn shut so the hock made the heel of the moccasin. The finished moccasin was worn flesh side out so the fur was inside for warmth. Two laces were sewn to the heel and the tops were turned down, showing the fur, “because it looked good. The laces were wrapped around the ankle and calf of the moccasin leg and tied off.

During World War I, The Alger Smith logging railroad made a contract with John Wesley Morris Sr to cut ties. For a year, John Wesley Morris had 200 men cutting tamarack ties. When the time came to deliver the ties, the Alger Smith Company refused to honor the contract. The war was over, and they'd decided not to put in the logging railroads that the ties were required for. John Wesley Morris took them to court, but the judge threw out his suit. According to family legend, "the Alger-Smith lawyer winked at the judge and the judge winked back." John Wesley Morris was forced to sell everything he had to pay his men and creditors. It took him several years to completely pay his debts.

Because of this, as time went by, the Morris family became more and more hermit like. They didn't talk to people they didn't know.

In 1919, John Wesley Morris Sr, was 50 years old, when he got into a fight with some Alger Smith men on the train between Two Harbors and Knife River. He was thrown off the train. As John was a huge man, and very strong, it must have taken quite a few of them to throw him off. No doubt John Morris Sr felt some animus toward the railroad after the way they'd dealt with him.

Journal News: In 1920 the state railroad and warehouse commission authorized the Duluth & Northern Minnesota Railroad (Alger Smith) to close down its line. While they'd made huge profits, almost nothing had been done on the upkeep of the line and it was deemed unfit for traffic. All rolling stock has been sold except a few cars and one engine (Three-Spot – currently available for viewing at the Two Harbors Depot Museum). According to John W. Morris of Mile Post 68, it is the intention of the company to run the lone engine until it gets stuck in the snow and leave it there until spring when the order of the commission takes effect. The only possibility of service on the line will be until the first big snow. Settlers charged at the hearing that the company deliberately discouraged business on the line. The company claims they have been losing money since 1914. Patrons had decreased from 14,000 to 6,000. They stated the line had never been used except as a subsidiary of Alger Smith Co. and that the loss for the year 1920 would be $68,000 beginning July 1.

The Duluth & Northern Minnesota RR was formed as a common carrier. Anyone could ship goods, including logs, on the line. Alger Smith reformed the company as the General Logging Railroad – which was not a common carrier, squeezing out loggers like John Wesley Morris Sr. John took a job as a Timber Cruiser for the State of Minnesota. It was a far cry from running his own camp and employing 200 men.

Several times in the following years, the Alger Smith Company tried to burn the Morris family out. When the woods were dry, the locomotive would stop just upwind of the homestead and the engineer would throw hot coals into the woods. The whole family would get out with wet gunny sacks, axes, and shovels, and work at putting out the fires.

The Morris family became very reticent and hermit like. Professor Julius Wolfe, history professor and author, referred to them as having a "Swiss Family Robinson" type existence. He wanted to write a book about the Morris family, but was defeated by their reticence. Fine raconteurs around the campfire, none of them would talk to him, once he mentioned “book.”

After the Alger Smith debacle, John Wesley Morris Sr worked as a timber cruiser; lonely work. He carried a Duluth Pack, type pack with two small snowshoes attached to the back – in case he got caught in an early snow storm. For normal snow shoe work, he had a pair of seven foot long snowshoes.

Jack Morris said that if they saw someone coming down the trail that they didn't know, they'd step aside into the woods. They didn't talk to people they didn't know.

The Morris family did not attend church. There was no church to attend. At great intervals, a Methodist circuit rider would appear in the clearing and hold services in the homestead.

The Morris family was always up for singing. Several of the kids played instruments and John Wesley Morris Sr had hauled a foot pedal organ to the homestead from an abandoned church and it made great music for many years. Jack said their love of music came from their Welsh ancestors.

One of the songs they would sing:

MISS FOGARTY'S CHRISTMAS CAKE Irish Christmas Song

As I sat in my window last evening The letterman brought it to me A little gilt-edged invitation sayin' "Gilhooley come over to tea" I knew that the Fogarties sent it. So I went just for old friendships sake. The first thing they gave me to tackle Was a slice of Miss Fogarty's cake.

Chorus: There were prunes and plums and cherries, There were raisins and cinnamon, too There was nutmeg, cloves and berries And a crust that was nailed on with glue There were caraway seeds in abundance T'would build up a fine tummy ache T'would kill a man twice after eating a slice Of Miss Fogarty's Christmas cake.

Miss Mulligan wanted to try it, But really it wasn't no use For we worked at it over an hour And we couldn't get none of it loose Murphy came in with a hatchet

 Kelly he brought the saw A piece of that cake by the powers  Would paralyze any man's jaw

Miss Fogarty proud as a peacock, Kept smiling and blinking away Till she tripped over Flanagan's brogans And spilt a whole brewing of tay (tea) Aye Gilhooley she says you're not eatin, Try a little bit more for me sake And no Miss Fogarty says I, For I've had quite enough of your cake

Maloney was took with the colic, O'Donald's a pain in his head Mc'Naughton lay down on the sofa, And he swore that he wished he was dead Miss Bailey went into hysterics And there she did wriggle and shake And everyone swore they were poisoned Just from eating Miss Fogarty's cake

In the 1920s there were many questionable characters up in the woods. One Frenchman carried his life savings, in gold, on a money belt worn around his waist. He also carried a broom-handle Mauser pistol. He was very reticent about the gold he carried – unless he'd been drinking. Then, he would get a sly look, put his finger to his lips, and unveil his hoard – with exhortations to onlookers "not to tell a soul." He disappeared one day. No body was ever found.

South of the homestead, Ed and Lottie Pepper built the Nine Mile Tavern on Nine Mile Lake. Though the country was dry, due to prohibition, you could always get a drink at the Nine Mile Tavern. Stills were common in the backwoods, and the Canadian border wasn't that far away.

Ed and Lottie also dealt in illegal furs. Lottie was the brains of the outfit, and she felt they weren't getting a fair shake when they sold their illegal furs. She went down to Duluth and got a job as a lady's maid. While so employed, she kept her eyes and ears open. She found that each autumn, the society ladies from Duluth would load their steamer trunks with clothing and go to New York for the theatre season. That autumn found Lottie on the train, heading for New York. In a new wardrobe and acting the part of a society lady; her steamer trunks were filled with illegal furs. In New York she showed her wares to a fur buyer who made numerous disparaging remarks about the quality of the furs. Lottie made up her mind she had to get a certain price. When the buyer said he'd only give her so much, three times the price she had decided on, she quickly told him she'd never take so little, and got him to pay more.

On another occasion, written up in a 1927 Minnesota Game Warden magazine, Ed and Lottie, with a load of illegal furs, were in a car being chased by game wardens. The game wardens were shooting at Ed and Lottie, and Lottie was shooting back while Ed drove. Ed was quite a driver, his car was faster, and he got enough lead on the game wardens so he was able to stop at a bridge where Lottie, with the furs and guns, went into the river and floated down stream. When the game wardens showed up, Ed said he was very thirsty and wanted to know if they had any booze.

August 23, 1917, Nelson Dahlbec, proprietor of Hotel Cramer, was arrested for running a still and selling moonshine to the loggers.

In 1917 Shakespeare Cramer was murdered in his shack – just north of Cramer.

There was a homesteader named Robinson who lived beyond Rabbit Lake (Morris Lake on the map today), about one mile across the swamp from the Morris Homestead at Hare Lake. He and his wife did not get along and one day the house burned down with her in it. Foul play was suspected and Tom Brown, the coroner, and Emil Nelson, the Sheriff went to investigate. They found her bones in the cellar. Having little to go on, they decided to call it an accident and dropped the matter.

There is also a Morris Lake near Saganagah, 38 miles from the Homestead. I don't know if this lake is named for our Morris family, but the Morris Lake (Rabbit Lake to the Morris Family) near the homestead must be.

About in the late 1930s or 1940 - after Jack Morris - son of John Wesley Morris - had moved down to Duluth - Two elderly ladies knocked on their door. They said they'd seen his name in the Duluth phone book and were looking for their brother. It turned out they were Jack's aunts (he didn't know he had any aunts), and that their brother was John Wesley Morris, Jack's father - whom they'd thought dead many years before.

There was a reunion, but it was short lived. John Wesley Morris had a stroke. For a year, he couldn't talk - but he could rock. Every day he sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the homestead and rocked hard, almost violently. After rocking for a year, it was as if he'd come out of a trance and he was himself again for about a year. Then he died in 1942.