Person:Eleanor McCord (2)

It took a lot of detective work for me to find likely candidates for the parents of William S. Morrison. The only actual evidence I trusted was in the 1920 census when our William S. Morrison was 60 and his wife, Fannie, 64, it shows that William’s mother Ellen M. “Bradley”, born in Ohio, was living in their Jeffersonville household with them, aged 84. I was not sure whether Bradley was her maiden name or the name of another husband so I went looking.

As an aside, the informant on William S. Morrison’s death certificate was his son Fielding Morrison and it states that William’s father’s name was Bradley. After much research I am certain that they do not mean that Bradley is the first name of William’s father but was the last name of Ellen’s second husband and the stepfather to William Morrison (William was living in the Bradley household at least beginning at age 5) so he probably thought of William Bradley as his father. It is probably significant that William and Fannie named one of their sons Bradley.

Looking back to trace Ellen’s history, I found a 1900 census for Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky listing an Ellen Bradley, age 69 born in Ohio about 1831. This birth date matches up with the birth date on the death certificate I later found for Ellen. At this time she had been married for 35 years to William Bradley (since 1865 I guess) who was born about 1826 in Indiana. Also living with them at 904 York Street were William Bradley’s daughter Kate Bradley born about 1856, daughter Caroline (Bradley)McDowell, born about 1860 and Caroline’s daughter Miss William McDowell, born about 1884.

In the 1910 census Ellen M. Bradley, 79 year old widow was still living in Newport, Kentucky with Carrie McDowell, age 50, stepdaughter and Miss William McDowell, age 25, (Carrie’s daughter) and a female servant. By 1920 she had moved in with son William Morrison (see above). Anyway, I kept searching for an earlier marriage for Ellen and after much searching, I found the 1850 and 1860 censuses showing a family in Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky, headed by Abraham Morrison, riverboat pilot, born in Kentucky and with wife, Ellen, born in Ohio. In the 1850 census we see Abraham is age 26 and Ellen is 21. There is another family in the dwelling right next door with William Morrison, Grocer, age 48 born in New York and Mary A. Morrison, age 37 born in Ohio. Information I discovered several years later shows him to be an older brother of Abraham. In the Newport Directory1856-57, Published by C W Williams at the Cincinnati Directory Office, 194 Walnut St. corner Fifth, Cincinnati, Ohio he is listed as Morrison, A-pilot, w s York b Harris & Tibbatts. I think those are street names. He is not listed in the directory for 1867-78.

In the 1860 census we see Abraham now 36, Ellen listed as 28 and infant William, 5 months old. BINGO! The census was done in July and our William S. Morrison was born in February. This sounds like the one! The 1860 census has other folks living with them, a 17 year old domestic Victoria Hooper but also Henry Tyson age 49 a grocer born in Prussia, Eliza Tyson his wife and their four children.

Ellen’s first husband (and our William’s father) Abram Morrison died in 1862 (I later learned). She remarried three years later.