www.civilwar.nps.gov - Detailed Soldier
Record:
John H. Morrison -
Co B - 13 Reg't Tennessee Cavalry
Soldier's rank in, Private;
Soldier's rank out, Private
Film Number M392, Roll 11
Civil War Pension
Index (ancestry.com):
Morrison,
John H.
Widow: Morrison, Lucy A.
Service: B 13 Tenn Cav
Date of filing: 1881 Aug 31;
Invalid; Appl # - 428645; Cert # - 978924; State filed - Ill
Date of filing: 1914 Oct 26; Widow; Appl # -
1036415; Cert # - 785 123; State filed - Ill
Headstone Readings,
Elmhurst Cemetery,
Joliet, IL, G.A.R. Section:
Adjacent headstones
John H. Morrison
1841-1941
Co. H 13th Tenn Cav
|
Lucy
A. Morrison
1852-1917
|
Will County Illinois USGenWeb
Necrologist Reports (© 2002
The ILGenWeb Project All Rights
Reserved):
Oct. 18, 1914 - John
H. Morrison, a veteran of the civil war, aged 72 years. He
was a resident of Joliet since retiring from his farm.
Published Obituaries:
Additional Biographical Material:
Joliet Evening Herald, Vol. X, Monday,
October 19, 1914
DEAD:
CAPTAIN ROBERT J. MORRISON,
74 years old,
township assessor-elect of Joliet, for many years a public official,
and one of
Will county’s best-known businessmen.
JOHN H.
MORRISON, 72 years old, Civil War veteran and retired farmer.
Brother of Captain Morrison.
On August
23 seventy-six families petitioned the State Public Utilities
commission to
have a guard and a gate placed at the crossing.
It
was dangerous, they said.
The commission
replied a few days
later.
It has induced the railroad to
cut off a few trees near the tracks at the crossing and to remove the
roof from
a large wooden tank.
Thus were the only
serious obstacles to a perfect view of the tracks removed, said the
commission.
The crossing no longer was
dangerous, said
the commission. It would give the crossing in its present condition a
three
months’ trial.
Three months
have not yet
passed.
Two clear-headed men, who had
seen danger in their lives and had used cool judgment in escaping, were
killed
instantly at a crossing that no longer was dangerous, according to the
Public
Utility commission; that no longer would be a source of worry to
mothers whose
children had to cross the tracks to get to school; that no longer might
strike
the breath from the bodies of physically weary and mentally fatigued
men going
home after working long hours in shop and factory.
Thomas Miller,
driver of the
engine, says the two men were killed because the captain had nearly
stopped his
automobile at the tracks and Miller thought that the auto would allow
the
engine to pass first.
The engine was
backing north after
dropping a train in
Frankfort.
The Morrison vehicle was going east.
The captain and the railway driver had a full
and perfect view of each other.
Miller and the
fireman of the
engine, J. M. Luman, refused to talk.
Their
side of the story was told this morning by O. R.
Gnadinger, claim
agent of the road, in his office.
Miller
and Luman were with him.
“Of course I
can’t allow the employees
to talk,” said Grandinger.
“They aren’t
going to say a word before the coroner’s inquest.
But
here’s the story:
“Miller was
backing his engine
toward the yards at
Jackson street,
after unhooking his train at
Frankfort.
Twelve hundred feet from the
Washington
crossing his blew his whistle.
Two
hundred feet away he saw the Morrison auto.
Miller
was driving eight or ten miles an hour at this
time and Morrison
was driving four or five miles an hour.
“Miller
applied the brakes and
reduced his speed to four or five miles an hour.
By
this time he was twenty or twenty-five
feet from the crossing and he saw that the auto was within a few feet
of the
tracks but was only creeping, positively going at a snail’s pace.
Naturally he thought that the auto would stop
within a couple of inches and he released his air brake.
“The engine
hit the auto just as it
was crossing the track.
It pushed it
about 25 feet north before Miller could stop.
By
that time the auto was practically demolished.
Both
the Morrisons had been run over.
They
probably were thrown out of their car by
the jar.
They were not struck by the
wheels of the engine.”
John A.
Marquardt, Jr., Chicago and
Joliet Electric railway motorman, contradicted Miller’s statement that
he had
blown his whistle.
“Didn’t hear a
sign of a whistle,”
he declared.
Mrs. Mary J.
Rose, who conducts a
grocery store at the crossing, absolutely refused to talk of the
accident.
“I saw it
right here from my store
window,” said she.
“Oh, I’ve had the worst
nervous strain I ever had in my life.
I
just can’t talk!”
William
Hills,
109
Parks avenue, a passenger on the funeral
car,
heard a crash.
“I jumped up
and looked out of the
window,” he said today.
“I saw the
engine backing.
It stopped about one
hundred
feet away.
And then I noticed the wheels
of an automobile projecting from behind it.
“I rushed up
to the wreck and saw
their bodies, fearfully mangled.
They
were dead when we got there.
Mr. Gnadinger,
the claim agent,
asserted that Miller was one of the most careful engineers on the road
and had
driven an engine for twenty-three years.
Captain
Morrison’s automobile was a
one-cylinder car.
It was almost utterly
demolished.
After the accident it was
pulled from the tracks north of
Washington
street,
where the engine had pushed it to a field beside the roadway.
Two front wheels cling perilously to the
remains of the car.
The only thing about
it that is untouched is the license number, “91002,” a reminder of the
happy
motor-car trips planned by the aged civil war veteran when he sent his
check to
the office of the secretary of state.
Captain
Morrison was born in
Toronto, Canada,
May 1, 1840.
He was the son of Robert Morrison, a Scotchman
and Mrs.
Elizabeth Bell
Morrison, a native of
Ireland
but of Scotch descent.
The parents
crossed the
Atlantic in 1833.
In 1856 the
elder Morrison and his
family, who had left Toronto and were living in Baltimore, Md., removed
to
Carter county, Tennesse, where the father engaged in farming and became
minister of the local Methodist church.
Morrison
was a strong anti-slavery man, and his home was
a station on
the underground railroad for helping negro refugees to escape to
Canada.
Robert
Morrison died after the war,
at the age of 62 years, in Carroll county,
Mo.,
where he had removed with his family after the war.
From the
Joliet
Evening Herald, Vol. X, No. 294, Monday,
October 19, 1914, Page 3
DEATHS
MORRISON – The double funeral
of John and Robert J.
Morrison, who met death in an auto accident yesterday afternoon,
will
be held
from the Masonic Temple. The time is pending the arrival of Dr. John
Morrison, son of R.J. Morrison and Edward Morrison, son of John
Morrison from
the West. R.J. Morrison is survived by a
widow, a daughter, Miss Elizabeth and two sons, Dr. John of Montana
and Will of Peoria. John Morrison is
survived by his widow and one son, Edward.
Updated: 4 July
2008