Perez Morton was a lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 and revolutionary patriot

Patriot (American Revolution)

Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...

 in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.

Biography

Morton was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1751, and raised in Boston. His father, Joseph Morton, worked as a tavern-keeper at the White Horse Tavern

White Horse Tavern (Boston, Massachusetts)

The White Horse was a tavern on Washington Street in Boston, Massachusetts in the 17th and 18th centuries. A well-known gathering place in colonial Boston, it "had a large square sign projecting over the footway, on which was delineated a white charger." Located near Boylston Street, the White...

. Perez attended the Boston Latin School

Boston Latin School

The Boston Latin School is a public exam school founded on April 23, 1635, in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States....

 starting around 1760, and Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

, graduating in 1771. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1774.

He participated in the Committee of Safety

Committee of Safety (American Revolution)

Many Committees of Safety were established throughout Colonial America at the start of the American Revolution. These committees started to appear in the 1760s as means to discuss the concerns of the time, and often consisted of every male adult in the community...

, and the Committee of Correspondence

Committee of correspondence

The Committees of Correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of American Revolution. They coordinated responses to Britain and shared their plans; by 1773 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature...

; he was also a Mason

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

, serving as Deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts

Grand Lodge of Massachusetts

The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, commonly referred to as the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts and abbreviated GLMA, is the main governing body of Freemasonry within Massachusetts, and maintains Lodges in other jurisdictions...

 in 1789-1790. In 1775-1776, he was Deputy Secretary of the Council of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. On April 8, 1776, Morton spoke at the memorial service held for Joseph Warren

Joseph Warren

Dr. Joseph Warren was an American doctor who played a leading role in American Patriot organizations in Boston in early days of the American Revolution, eventually serving as president of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress...

, at King's Chapel

King's Chapel

King's Chapel is "an independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association" that is "unitarian Christian in theology, Anglican in worship, and congregational in governance." It is housed in what was formerly called "Stone Chapel", an 18th century...

.

In 1778, he married Sarah Wentworth Apthorp

Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton

Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton was an American poet.She was born in Boston to a successful merchant family . In 1781, she was married to Boston lawyer Perez Morton at Trinity Church, Boston, and the couple lived on a family mansion on State Street...

. Together they had 5 children: Sarah Apthorp Morton (1782–1844); Anna Louisa Morton (1783–1843); Frances Wentworth Morton (1785–1831); Charles Ward Apthorp Morton (1786-1809); and Charlotte Morton (1787–1819) From ca.1796 to ca.1803, the Mortons owned a house on Dudley Street in Dorchester; the house may have been designed by Charles Bulfinch

Charles Bulfinch

Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and has been regarded by many as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession....

. Friends and associates of Morton included James Bowdoin

James Bowdoin

James Bowdoin II was an American political and intellectual leader from Boston, Massachusetts during the American Revolution. He served in both branches of the Massachusetts General Court in the colonial era and was president of the state's constitutional convention...

, John Adams

John Adams

John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...

, and James Swan

James Swan (financier)

James Swan was an early American patriot and financier. Born in Fifeshire, Scotland, he moved at a young age to Boston, Massachusetts. In the 1770s and 1780s he worked as a clerk, and became increasingly involved in the political, military and economic life of the city...

.

In 1788, the Mortons were the subject of a public scandal regarding an illegitimate child of Sarah Morton's sister, Fanny Apthorp, rumored to have had an affair with Perez. The scandal was amplified in the press, notably the Massachusetts Centinel

Columbian Centinel

The Columbian Centinel was a Boston, Massachusetts, newspaper established by Benjamin Russell. It continued its predecessor, the Massachusetts Centinel and the Republican Journal, which Russell and partner William Warden had first issued on March 24, 1784...

and the Herald of Freedom and the Federal Advertiser. A novel published in 1789, The Power of Sympathy

The Power of Sympathy

The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature is an eighteenth-century American sentimental novel written in epistolary form by William Hill Brown; it is widely considered to be the first American novel. Published by Isaiah Thomas in January 1789, The Power of Sympathy was Brown's first novel...

, written by a neighbor of the Mortons, William Hill Brown

William Hill Brown

William Hill Brown was an American novelist, the author of what is usually considered the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy and "Harriot, Or The Domestick Reconciliation" as well as the serial essay "The Reformer" published in Isaiah Thomas' Massachusetts Magazine.In both, Brown proves an...

, depicted an adulterous affair between a man and his sister-in-law; at the time, many suspected the novel to be based on the real-life Morton/Apthorp affair.

Morton served as Massachusetts Speaker of the House, 1806-1808, and 1810-1811; and as Massachusetts Attorney General

Massachusetts Attorney General

The Massachusetts Attorney General is an elected executive officer of the Massachusetts Government. The office of Attorney-General was abolished in 1843 and re-established in 1849. The current Attorney General is Martha Coakley....

, 1810-1832.

He died in Dorchester in 1837.

Portraits of Morton have been made by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin was a portraitist and museum director. He fled France during the revolution, and worked as a portrait engraver in the United States in the early 19th century. He created portraits from life of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others...

, and others. Some items owned by Perez Morton are now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...

, including a silver ladle made by Paul Revere

Paul Revere

Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...

.

Further reading

• Francis B. Heitman. Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution April 1775, to December 1783. Washington, D.C.: The Rare Book Shop Publishing Company, Inc., 1914.
• Emily Pendleton, Milton Ellis. Philenia: The Life and Works of Sarah Wentworth Morton, 1759-1846. 1931.
• Clifford K. Shipton. Sibley's Harvard graduates; Volume 17, the Classes 1768-1771. 1975.
• Richard Walser. Boston's Reception of the First American Novel. Early American Literature, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), pp. 65-74.
• Jane Kamensky. The exchange artist: a tale of high-flying speculation and America's first banking collapse. Viking, 2008; p. 43+

External links