The following letter was written by Robert Stuart Morrison (1822-1902), the son of Thomas and Mary (Jennings) Morrison of Mount Gilead, Morrow county, Ohio. Robert was born in Green county, Pennsylvania, in March 1822. He graduated at Miami University (1852) and the Princeton Theological Seminary (1854), and until 1879 was a teacher and a minister of the gospel at Chicago and Louisville. While at the Miami University, Morrison, with five other students, founded the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.

Morrison’s career as a minister, editor of religious publications, and teacher took him to Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri. He edited the Louisville Presbyterian Herald from 1854 to 1860. He was also co-editor of the Louisville True Presbyterian, which was suppressed by Union military authorities in 1863, during the Civil War.

In September 1869, Morrison established Westminster Academy, a co-educational school in Waterford, Ohio, where he was principal for six years. He was also the principal of Poplar Grove Academy in Rutherford County, Tennessee. He combined his teaching duties with regular preaching. From 1879 to 1881 he worked as a financial agent to eliminate the debts of Westminster College and established the Phi Delta Theta Missouri Beta Chapter, in Fulton, Missouri. After this he preached at various locations around Missouri, and founded churches in towns such as Gravois Mills and Tuscumbia.

In his letter, Morrison speaks of the weekly newspaper recently purchased by himself, Andrew Davidson, and Stuart Robinson, which they named The True Presbyterian. The first issue of the publication was 3 April 1862. At the time, Morrison lived fifteen miles south of Louisville.

From Morrison’s letter, we learn that he made a trip out to Camp Chase for the purpose of seeing his friend, Col. Joel Allen Battle, 20th Tennessee Infantry. The colonel was taken captive during the Battle of Shiloh in early April 1862. After being held in Columbus, he was later taken to the prison at Johnson’s Island where he was not exchanged until September 1862. Two of Battle’s son’s were killed at Shiloh—William Searcy Battle (1835-1862) and Joel Allen Battle, Jr. (1838-1862).

The letter was addressed to Mary Helen Voorhees (1833-1908), the daughter of Peter Albert Voorhees (1802-1883) and Maria Suydam (1806-1883). She married John Calvin Hoagland (1827-1894) in January 1868.

Transcription

Columbus, Ohio
26 May 1862

Dear Mary,

Your kind letter of May 5th is yet unanswered though since it was written, I have written once or twice. For the variety of news on pages 1 & 2, I thank you. We get the Intelligencer in exchange for the True Presbyterian and have read its fancy remarks. As to controversy for its own sake perhaps a few love it less than Rev. Stuart Robinson. In a small way it is a little curious that each name of each proprietor of our paper have the same number of letters, viz:

Stuart Robinson
Andrew Davidson
Robert Morrison

All sons, one born in Ireland but raised and educated in Virginia, another in Scotland, but trained so far as business is concerned in New York at Carters, and the third, whom you sometimes call your friend born in Pennsylvania but raised partly in Ohio, residing afterward in Dixie’s Land.

I have been here for several days, a looker on in Venice, a listener and a note taker in the court, making out reports for the True Presbyterian. The assembly is large—somewhere between 230 & 240. Of course no delegates south of the Border States. Saturday evening they passed a paper destined, I suppose, to send the Presbyterian Church in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, and by & by, in some places north of us. It was Dr. Breckinridge’s paper on the State of the Country. The vote was taken by calling the ayes and noes & the vote stood 199 to 20.

The weather has been pleasant & this city is a pleasant, beautiful place. I wish to go out perhaps this p.m. to visit some friends taken prisoner at Pittsburg Landing—some of the first men of their region I have found here on their way as prisoners to Johnson’s Island at Sandusky on Lake Erie. One, and a friend, a Colonel of the 20th Tennessee, was here who had two sons killed in his regiment.

And I may not have the privilege of visiting you. Sorry for it. It is a hard penance to which I am consigned but I am loyal and yield to direction. If “I have not time” I would take it for such a privilege as to see the light of your countenance. May I not call to see you when you are abroad if I may not see you at home? e.g. at your Cousin Rev. Voorhees Gulick’s or at Brooklyn or somewhere else?

The counselor I need is of the kind that God alluded to when he said it was not good for man to be alone. That was the kind I spoke of.

In this wide work, God uses a variety of laborers & whether they should be nuns or not, some should be “mission teachers” but of course before a woman should forsake the natural, normal orbit in which God has placed her, God’s will so signifying should of course be clear, direct and unmistakable, not only to leave the one place but to go to a definite & new place. I am not in any great hurry, though I am not getting younger to marry. For one that I admire & love half so much as I do Mary of the Hermitage, I could afford to wait.

I do not wish to interfere with any arrangements for Ella’s benefit. But I must conclude whether I will or not at this time for “Books” is drawing apace at the Assembly. Whether I am ever permitted to write or see you again, may God bless you, Mary. I am either more or less than your friend, — Robert Morrison