Sunday, May 23, 2010

Edmund Needham Morrill.



Edmund Needham Morrill.

Edmund Needham Morrill (February 12, 1834–March 14, 1909) was a U.S. Congressman from Kansas and the 13th Governor of Kansas.

Edmund Needham Morrill was born in Westbrook, Maine to Rufus and Mary (Webb) Morrill. He attended the common schools at Westbrook Academy and learned the trade of tanning from his father. At the age of 23, he moved to Kansas. In 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company C, 7th Kansas Cavalry. Within a year he was promoted to captain, and by 1865 he was promoted to major.

After the war, he entered the banking business and remained in that business for the rest of his life. Edmund married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth A. Brettum whom he married 27 November 1862. Elizabeth died November 1868 at Hiawatha, Kansas. Morrill's second wife was Caroline Jenkins Nash whom he married 25 December 1869. Together they had three children all born at Hiawatha.

A year after the war, he was elected clerk of the district court. In 1872 he was elected to the Kansas Senate. In 1882 he was elected to the U.S. Congress, serving four two-year terms before declining another, announcing instead his retirement from politics. Nevetheless at the urging of his friends, he accepted the nomination for Governor of Kansas in 1894 and served one term, being defeated for a second term in 1896.

Caroline Nash Morrill.

Caroline thought society was cold and heartless and would participate in social events only when it was absolutely necessary. Her daughter, however, enjoyed the social whirl and relished the activities inherent in her father’s position. Caroline Morrill disliked polities, and ardently whished her husband had not become involved. Paradoxically, she believed that women should have a voice in moral problems and joined a suffragist movement in her home town of Hiawatha.

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