Lewis Morris

Lewis Morris was born in 1726 at the family manor of Morrisania, in what is now the Bronx, and inherited that estate. He served in the colonial assembly, sat in the New York provincial congress, and became a member of the Continental Congress. He was away from Philadelphia for part of the summer of 1776 and added his name to the Declaration after the 2 August signing. During the war Morrisania lay in disputed ground near British-held New York City; the property was plundered and the house damaged. Morris served as a militia officer and later in the New York Senate, and he supported ratification of the Constitution. He was a landed proprietor in a colony where enslaved labor was common on large estates. He died at Morrisania in 1798. His half-brother Gouverneur Morris later helped write the final wording of the Constitution.

See also: Signers of the Declaration · William Floyd · Philip Livingston · Francis Lewis