Roger Morris (British Army officer)

Roger Morris (28 January 1717 – 13 September 1794) was a colonel in the British Army who fought in the French and Indian War.

Life
He was born in England on 28 January 1727, the third son of Roger Morris of Netherby, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, by his first wife, the fourth daughter of Sir Peter Jackson

He become a captain in the 48th Regiment of Foot. The regiment served at Falkirk and Culloden, and in Flanders. Morris came to America with General Edward Braddock and served as his aide-de-camp. He was wounded during Braddock's Defeat near Fort Duquesne in western Pennsylvania. Transferred to the 35th Regiment of Foot in 1758, Morris served in Fort Frederick in Nova Scotia. Morris joined the Louisbourg Grenadiers (a special corps made up of the Grenadiers of the 22nd, 40th and 45th Regiments ) during General James Wolfe's invasion of French controlled Quebec where he participated in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on 13 September 1759.

During the battle the Louisbourg, Grenadiers suffered a loss of fifty-five killed and wounded. In May 1760, Morris was promoted to lieutenant-colonel of the 47th Regiment of Foot shortly after the Battle of Sainte-Foy, and participated in General Jeffrey Amherst's assault and capture of Montreal on 8 September 1760 ending French rule in North America.

Morris retired from the army in 1764 and settled in New York City with his American wife, Mary Philipse (daughter of Frederick Philipse) who had married in 1758. The following year, he had a large mansion named "Mount Morris", later called the Morris-Jumel Mansion, built on a hilltop in northern Manhattan in Harlem Heights. The property was confiscated in 1776. The house was Washington's headquarters at one time. Morris's plate and furniture were sold by auction some weeks later.

When the American Revolutionary War began in 1776, Morris, who was a Loyalist, returned to England with his wife. He died in York, England on 13 September 1794, at age 77. His wife died in 1825 at the age of 96. A monument is erected over their graves in St Saviour's Church, St Saviourgate in York.

Family
There were two sons and two daughters by the marriage. The eldest son, Amherst Morris, entered the royal navy, and was first lieutenant of the Nymphe frigate, Captain Sir Edward Pellew, afterwards Viscount Exmouth, in her famous action with the French frigate La Cleopatre. He died in 1802.

The other son, Henry Gage Morris, also saw much service in the navy, and rose to the rank of rear-admiral. He afterwards resided at York and at Beverley. He died at Beverley in 1852, and was buried in Beverley Minster. He was father of Francis Orpen Morris the naturalist. The English attorney-general having given his opinion that property inherited by children at the demise of their parents was not included in the aforesaid attainder, in law or equity, the surviving children of Roger and Mary Morris in 1809, sold their reversionary interests to John Jacob Astor of New York for a sum of £20,000, to which the British government added £17,000, in compensation for their parents' losses.