Henry Lee Morey
Henry Lee Morey, representative in congress from this district, was born in Milford Township, in this county, on the 8th of April, 1841. He is the son of William and Derexa Morey, neither of whom are now living. The ancestors of William Morey came to America, from England, in the early part of the seventeenth century, and are supposed to have settled in the colony of Massachusetts. From thence, in time, their descendants scattered to various parts of the country, the branch to which William Morey traces his origin settling in Connecticut. His grandfather served in the Revolutionary War as a commissioned officer. After the close of that struggle, and when the lands of Western New York were offered for sale, he removed to that State and settled in Steuben County.
His father, William Morey, in turn, emigrated in 1814 to the new State of Ohio, bringing with him his young family, among them William, a lad of thirteen, and locating in the Seven-Mile Valley, near the site of the present village of Collinsville, where he died on the 16th of August, 1815, in the forty-second year of his age, leaving Anda Morey, his widow, and seven children, four sons and three daughters. He was buried in the old cemetery near that town, but sixty-two years afterward his remains were removed by his grandchildren to Greenwood Cemetery, where they now rest beside those of his wife, who survived him thirty years. William Morey, his son, and the father of Henry Lee Morey, was the third child of the family. He was united in marriage with Derexa Whitcomb on the 6th day of May, 1824, in Yankeetown, now Somerville, in this county.
Derexa Morey, whose maiden name was Whitcomb, was descended from Puritan stock. Her ancestors came to this country from England about 1630, and are supposed to have come from Dorsetshire, in the ship Mary and John, which sailed Plymouth, in England, and landed in what is now Boston Harbor, on the 30th of May of 1630, after a voyage of seventy days. One their descendants, Colonel Asa Whitcomb, was a revenue officer in colonial times, and others of the family have won distinction the various walks of life. One branch of this stock removed from Massachusetts to Vermont, from which is descended Anthony Whitcomb, the father of Derexa Whitcomb. A brother of Anthony was the father of James Whitcomb, at one commissioner of the land office, twice elected governor of the State of Indiana, and later a United States senator from that State.
Anthony Whitcomb came to Ohio from the State of Vermont about the year 1815, and settled in Hamilton County, near Cincinnati, then a small town where he soon died leaving Lucy Whitcomb, his widow, and six children, two sons and four daughters. Lucy Whitcomb afterwards married again, and move to Preble county, in this State, taking her family with her, where she died on the 5th of October, 1821, in the forty-eighth year of her age. Derexa here met William Morey, with whom she was united in marriage on the 6th of May, 1824. They were the parents of fourteen children, ten of whom survive, seven sons and three daughters. During the war of the Rebellion four of their sons served in the Union army.
William Morey died on the 8th of June 1872, in the seventy-first year of his age. In early life he learned and carried on the business of a hatter, but afterwards embraced mercantile pursuits,and later turned his attention to agriculture, which he followed for the remainder of this life. While engaged in the hatting business he visited the city of New Orleans to purchase a stock of furs, and there first became acquainted with the institution of slavery, and saw its practical workings. His strong sense of right revolted at its enormities, and made him look with abhorrence upon the system. He returned to his home a radical abolitionist, which he continued openly to be until the day of his death. During the period of fierce agitation of the slavery question he lived upon one the lines of the underground railroad, and was known as a friend of the black man.
In early life he was united with the Universalist Church, of which he continued a faithful member until his death. He was the strong friend of temperance, his voice being always against the liquor traffic, as also against the use of tobacco. His wife survived him five years, dying on the third day of July, 1877, in the seventy-sixth year of her age. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery by the side of her husband and children. In her early womanhood she united with the Universalist Church, in which faith she continued throughout her life. She was woman of bright intellect, thoughtful, patient, and self-denying, always ready to relieve the wants of the needy. On the 12th of July, 1879, Matella Morey Druley, the youngest child of William and Derexa Morey, died in the thirty-first years of her age, being the first death among their children in more than thirty years.
Henry Lee Morey attended the common schools of Butler and Preble Counties until 1856, when he was sent to the Morning Sun Academy to prepare for college. Two years later he entered Miami University. The war breaking out, he enlisted in the University Rifles, at Oxford, on the day after the fall of Fort Sumpter. This company was united with the Twentieth Western Virginia. At the expiration of this service, he enlisted in the Seventy-fifth Regiment Ohio Volunteers, and helped to recruit and organize that regiment at Camp McLean, near Lockland, Hamilton County. On the completion of the organization, he was elected a second lieutenant, and served with his regiment to the close of the war, being successively promoted to the positions of first lieutenant and captain, being senior captain of his regiment at the close of its term. His regiment went from Camp McLean, in January, 1862, into Western Virginia, and its campaigns marched over all the ranges of mountains into Eastern Virginia. He took part in the battles of Monterey, Franklin, Shaw's Ridge, McDowell, Strausburgh, Cross Keys, Cedar Mountain, Freeman's Ford, Sulphur Springs, Waterloo Bridge, second Bull Run, Aldie, and Chancellorsville in Virginia; Fort Wagner, Morris Island, Fort Gregg, and in the siege of Fort Sumpter (under General Quincy A. Gilmore), in South Carolina; and Camp Baldwin and Gainesville, Florida. He commanded his company in every action after Monterey. He was taken prisoner at the battle of Chancellorsville, and confined in Libby Prison, in Richmond, and was exchanged with the last lot of officers previous to the suspension of the cartel.
After the war he studies law, graduating at the Indianapolis Law College, and settling in Hamilton in the Spring of 1867, where has ever since remained. He is a Mason, having become a past Master, and has advanced through the council and chapter degrees. He has lately become a Knight Templar. He is also and Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias, and member of the Royal Arcanum. He has always affiliated with the Universalist Church, and for ten years has been superintendent of its Sunday-school in Hamilton.
On the 25th of April, 1865, he was married to Mary M. Campbell, who died July 1, 1867. February 26, 1873, he married Ella R. Campbell, sister of his first wife and daughter of William H. Campbell, late State senator, and granddaughter of Mrs. Mary Campbell, who is still living in Franklin, Warren County, in her ninety-seventh year.
He was admitted to the bar in 1867, and has remained in the active practice of this profession in the city of Hamilton ever since, until the last session of Congress, during which time he grew in popular favor, until he attained a leading place at the bar, and rapidly developed those elements so essential to a good lawyer. Of sterling integrity, fearless in his professional duties, of correct judgment, quick and decisive, keen and discriminating, energetic and persistent, clear and comprehensive, he is true and fair to his client, honest with the court and candid with the jury. As a counselor, he is frank and safe; as a pleader, terse and concise; as a jurist, logical and forcible, and as an advocate, eloquent and persuasive.
In his political career Mr. Morey has been remarkably successful. He is a Republican, devoted to his party, proud of its history, and thoroughly believing in its principles, but always courteous to his political opponents. In 1871 he was elected solicitor of the city of Hamilton, to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Judge Vance, and was shortly afterwards re-elected for a full term. In the same year he was elected prosecuting attorney of Butler County largely by his personal popularity, defeating his Democratic competitor, whose party was over two thousand in majority.
In 1875 he was a candidate for State senator in the district composed of Butler and Warren Counties, and although running largely ahead of the his ticket, was defeated. In 1880 he was nominated for Congress in this district by the Republicans. He received the nomination on July 28th , at the convention in Morrow, upon the three hundred and sixty-seventh ballot, after a protracted and close contest. He was triumphantly elected, receiving one thousand and twenty-eight majority over General Durbin Ward, the Democratic nominee. His career during the first session that Congress was highly satisfactory to his constituents, that on July 13, 1882 by his party at its convention in Lebanon, Ohio, he was renominated by acclamation.
In his official acts he keeps in line with Republicans on party questions, but in his relation with his constituents and in his zealous and devoted care of interests he makes no distinction, treating all alike. He is affable and genial, courteous and kind, attentive and industrious, with wonder capacity for details, efficient of broad views, and patriotic. In his capacity as a private citizen, he is generous, sympathetic, neighborly and obliging, active and enterprising, successful and influential; and has done much for the growth and development of the city of Hamilton and Butler County, and has always been the friend and advocate of all valuable public improvements looking to the prosperity of the people.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.