Three Forks of the Kentucky River Historical Association

Biography

James M. Morris

Submitted by John Sandlin
Transcribed by Michelle Williams Cole
History of Kentucky Judge Charles Kerr
Edited by William Elsey Connelley

JAMES M. MORRIS, M.D., an accomplished physician and surgeon and an official of the United States Public Health Service, with headquarters in the Federal Building at Hopkinsville, is a veteran of two wars, and represents a pioneer family of Jackson County, Kentucky, where he was born March 24, 1873. His paternal ancestors on coming from England settled in the colony of Pennsylvania. His grandfather, Henry Morris, was born in North Carolina in 1801. Soon after his marriage he left North Carolina and settled in Jackson County Kentucky. He was a civil engineer by profession and was a union soldier during the Civil war. He died at McKee in Jackson County in 1885. His wife was Caroline Hunt, who was born in North Carolina in 1804 and died in Jackson County in 1890.

Their son, John G. Morris, still living on his farm in Jackson County, was born in Owsley County in 1847, was reared there, married in Laurel County, and since then has been closely and successfully identified with the agricultural interests of Jackson County, but is now retired. He is a republican and a member of the Primitive Baptist Church. John G. Morris married Syrena McDowell, oldest daughter of Dr. Frank McDowell, a Virginian who was a pioneer and greatly beloved physician of Laurel County, Kentucky, where his daughter Syrena was born in 1847. By her marriage to John G. Morris she is the mother of six children; James M.; Frank, a traveling salesman living in Jackson County; Thomas L., a locomotive engineer with home at Gallatin, Illinois; William, a farmer in Jackson County; Isaac, in the lumber and timber business in Jackson County; and Robert, a farmer in Jackson County.

James M. Morris grew up on his father's farm, and his first advantages were supplied by some of the rural schools of Jackson County. He finished his high schoolwork at Fountain City, Tennessee. On April 26, 1898, a few days after the declaration of war against Spain, he volunteered in Battery E of the Seventh United States Heavy Artillery, and was in service until honorably discharged March 4, 1899. He forthwith took up his medical studies in the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and graduated M. D. in 1902. Doctor Morris in the twenty years of his professional experience has been a constant student, and in 1906 he took a special course in diseases of the chest at the Chicago Post Graduate School and a course in general medicine at the New York Post Graduate School in 1919. From 1902 to 1909 he practiced in his home county of Jackson, and following that was a physician in Clay County until 1917. On September 4, 1917, he was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Medical Corps, was in training two months at Fort Oglethorpe, and was assigned to duty as surgeon in the Three Hundred and First Tank Battalion at Camp Meade, Maryland. Two weeks later he was transferred with troops to Camp Colt at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and remained on duty there until September 24, 1918. In the meantime, on the 3 rd of May, he was promoted to the rank of captain. After leaving Gettysburg he was sent to the base hospital at Columbus, Ohio and on January 12, 1919, was transferred to the base hospital at Camp Kendrick, Lake Hurst, New Jersey, and received his honorable discharge March 15, 1919.

In October 1919, Doctor Morris resumed his private practice as a physician and surgeon at Berea, and at the same time performed duties as acting assistant surgeon of the United States Public Health Service. On July 16, 1921, he was transferred to Hopkinsville as acting assistant surgeon in charge of sub district unit, Bureau of War Risk Insurance.

Doctor Morris is a republican in politics, is a past master in Masonry and a member of Robert Clark Lodge No. 646, F. and A.M., at Sextons Creek, Kentucky, is affiliated with Bloomsburg Consistory of the Scottish Rite at Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, Almas Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Washington, D.C., is a past grand of Burning Springs Lodge No. 306, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in Kentucky, and a past chancellor of Dixie Lodge No. 178, Knights of Phythias, at Berea. He is a member of the County, State and American Medical associations.

On December 25, 1902, in Clay County, Doctor Morris married Miss Sarah Chestnut, daughter of Lieutenant Edward and Mary Webb Chestnut, now retired residents of Clay County. Her father was a lieutenant in the Union Army during the Civil war, and until he retired was identified with farming in Clay County. Doctor and Mrs. Morris have a family of five children: Virgil, born in 1904, and Mendel, born in 1906, both students in Berea College; John E., born in 1912; Robert, born in 1915; and James Jr., born in 1919.