Senator Thomas Morris
The following notice of perhaps the most renowned citizen that Columbia ever had, is extracted from the Life of Senator Morris, by his son, Mr. B. F. Morris:
In 1795 Thomas Morris, a young and enterprising adventurer, nineteen years of age, from the mountains of western Virginia, arrived in Columbia. He was immediately employed as a clerk in the store of Rev. John Smith, and became a great favorite with him. During this time his mind became deeply exercised on the subject of personal religion, and his feelings found utterance in frequent poetic effusions, which are all lost. Rev. John Smith and others regarded these productions as of great merit for a youth of his age and limited education. For several years he continued in the employ of Smith, improving, as he could, his mind by reading, and preparing for a wider sphere of action.
The plat of ground on which the great commercial city of Cincinnati now stands, was frequently traversed by Morris. His feet threaded the forest, then in the wild magnificence of nature, and the crack of his rifle brought down many a wild turkey from the tops of lofty trees which covered the very spot on which now is erected and established that noble building and institution, the Young Men's Mercantile Library association. How wonderful the change in fifty years. Now commerce, arts, sciences, education, Christian institutions, and the highest forms of a refined social civilization, and a prosperous industrial population of over two hundred thousand people, cover with their peaceful and noble triumphs, and their monuments of taste and civilization, and happiness, the same forest where young Morris was accustomed to shoot his wild game. Mr. Morris married Rachel, daughter of Benjamin Davis, a Columbian who came from Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, to Mason county, Kentucky, and thence here. He was of Welsh stock and had a fine family of five sons and two daughters. Morris removed to Williamsburgh, and then to Bethel, Clermont county, and became greatly distinguished as a lawyer, legislator, United States Senator, and anti-slavery agitator.
From History of Hamilton county, Ohio, Henry & Kate Ford, L. A. Williams & Co., Publishers, 1881