 Elias Morris LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Andrew Jenson, Vol. 1, p.636-639
Morris, Elias, seventh Bishop of the Fifteenth Ward, Salt Lake City, Utah, was born June 30, 1825, at Llanfair, Talhairne, Denbigshire, Wales, son of John Morris and Barbara Thomas. His parents were both natives of North Wales, and had seven sons and three daughters. His father was a builder and contractor, and was for many years engaged in building bridges and prisons for the counties of North Wales. Elias served his time under his father, and then, at the age of nineteen, he went to England to get more experience in the bricklaying line and furnace building. March 17, 1849, he joined the "Mormon" Church. He was the first man baptized in the town of Abergele, in his native county, by John Parry, who years afterwards had charge of building the Logan Temple. The same sum mer his father, mother, his brother Hugh and sister Barbara, also joined the Church; and in less than a year he, in connection with others, raised up a branch of about sixty members, among [p.637] whom was his brother Richard V. Morris, the late Bishop of the Nineteenth Ward. The following spring he went to Manchester to visit his brother Price, and to Liverpool to visit his brothers William V. and John, all three of whom were baptized. In the year 1850 he was called to travel through the Flintshire conference as a traveling Elder, and was also appointed first counselor to William Parry, president of that conference. There he labored till the fall of 1851, when Apostle John Taylor visited that conference, having in view the organization of the sugar company to send to Utah. Elias Morris was called as one of its mechanics, and at a conference, held at Holywell, Sept. 28, 1851, he was released to emigrate with the sugar company in the spring. Meantime he returned to his trade to provide an outfit; and, while thus engaged as a mason, on a three-story building at Abergale, Nov. 20, 1851, pointing the front of a building on a hanging scaffold, on the third story window, the scaffold gave way and he fell down into the street, alighting on his thigh; with presence of mind, as he touched the ground, he put his hand on a course of rock, under the large shop window, and leaped inside of the building, barely escaping death from the scaffold, which was falling after him. Strange to say, he was uninjured by the fall; and, after he got over the fright, he assisted in putting up a new scaffold. In the spring of 1852, Elder Morris met the sugar company at Liverpool, and was put in charge of it. There were among them experts in the manufacturing of sugar, several of whom were selected in Liverpool. While waiting in that city for sugar machinery, Elder Morris sent on his betrothed wife, Mary Parry, of New Market, on board the ship "Ellen Maria."' On the 28th of March his own company sailed from Liverpool, on board the ship "Rockaway;" and, after a tedious voyage of eight weeks, they arrived at New Orleans, where Pres. John Taylor met the company. Having discharged the machinery at Leavenworth, the president requested Elder Morris to accompany him to Council Bluffs, to fetch the wagons down. At Council Bluffs he met his betrothed, and they were married there by Apostle Orson Hyde, at the house of the bride's uncle, Joseph Parry, May 23, 1852. In due time the sugar company proceeded on their journey, and reached Salt Lake City in the latter part of November. Elder Morris immediately proceeded to Provo, and there the company turned over the sugar machinery to the Church, the enterprise having resulted in a failure. He remained at Provo during the winter; and, in the spring of 1853 he walked to Salt Lake City to attend the April conference, to see the laying of the foundation stone of the Salt Lake Temple. While at this conference he was requested by the authorities of the Church to go to Cedar City, Iron county, to take charge of the masonry and the iron works and blast furnaces. There he labored for seven years, off and on, till the failure of those works, when he returned to Salt Lake City in the spring of 1860. After his return from the south, Elder Morris went to work on the Temple block. He took a contract with Henry Eccles to cut the flagging of the foundation of the Temple. Feb. 7, 1864. Elias Morris and his men commenced work on the Eagle Emporium; in June he commenced Wm. S. Godbe's Exchange Buildings, and in July Ransahoff's store, south of Jennings'. It was at this date that Main street began to assume fully the imposing appearance of a merchant street. On these buildings Elder Morris paid to his masons from five to seven dollars per day; but, at that time, flour was selling in Salt Lake City at from $25 to $30 per hundred. At the April conference, 1865, Elias Morris was called to take a mission to Wales. There he stayed four [p.638] years and one month, during which time he was a conference president and the last year was president of the Welsh mission. He again left his native land in May, 1869, in charge of a company of Saints (365 souls), who were mostly helped by the Church and their friends in Utah. This was the first company that came through after the completion of the railroad in the year 1869. After his return from this mission, Elias Morris, in the spring of 1870, entered into partnership with Samuel L. Evans. This partnership, which existed for eleven years, was of a very peculiar and unique kind. They entered into an agreement that all their earnings should be left in their business, each family being allowed to draw out what they severally needed. Donations, etc., were paid in like manner by the firm, neither of the partners questioning the doings of the other. Thus they went on for eleven years, in the conduct of their business, in their private buildings and improvements for their families; in the supplies and money for their families; in pocket money for themselves; in donation, taxes, etc., indeed, in every other private or public draw on their united finances. This they did to the last, when death ended their partnership, without disagreement or a question ever being raised as to which family had received the least or the most. In this respect they never even so much as investigated their accounts. Their method from first to last was upon the pure United Order principle—each partner simply drawing or building according to his personal or family needs. Samuel L. Evans was the bookkeeper and cashier of the firm; and Elias Morris the superintendent of the practical work and of their men employed. Elder Evans died March 12, 1881. Administrators were appointed to appraise the property belonging to the firm, which paid all the debts of the deceased. Mr. Morris offered to buy or sell the half of the business and property, and the family of the deceased partner very properly sold out. Brother Morris purchasing for $10,000 in money and property, Evans' family being allowed their choice of property. Of the history of their business it may be thus summarized: Morris & Evans opened up the first marble monumental yard in Salt Lake. Soon after this the mining operations opened throughout the Territory, and from Elder Morris' past experience in furnace building their firm obtained the run of the business in building nearly all the furnaces throughout Utah and the adjacent Territories. At about this time they bought a fire clay mine in Bingham, and commenced the manufacture of fire brick of every kind, and supplied Nevada, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, giving great satisfaction. The firm took a contract for the Ontario mill, and Elder Morris did all the mason work of that company, including the Cornish pump in No. 3 shaft, which was considered by experts to be equal to anything in the Cornstock mine, Nevada. He built two Stetefeldt furnaces at the Ontario, another for the Marsac on an improved plan, and another for the Bullionville Smelting Company; also two of the same kind at Butte, Montana, and the two White & Howell at the Alice mill, and one at the Moulton mill, After the death of Elder Evans. Elias Morris carried on the former firm business in his own name, and also took a great interest in establishing other industries, among which may be mentioned the Nineteenth Ward Tannery, the Salt Lake Foundry, a soap factory, a slate quarry, the Utah Sugar Factory, etc. In 1891, in partnership with Houlahan & Griffith, he contracted to lay the cut stone and brick work of the City and County Building, also to build the gravity sewer of Salt Lake City. He served as a city councilor for four years and was a director in the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce one term. Elder Morris filled the position of a High Councilor in the Salt Lake Stake of Zion for nearly twenty years, being set apart for that office April 17, 1878. After the death of Elias Smith, he was chosen president of the High Priests' quorum in the Salt Lake Stake. To this position he was set apart Sept. 12, 1888, and filled it until the time of his death. On the reorganization of the 15th Ward Bishopric, May 11, 1890, he was chosen to succeed Joseph Pollard as Bishop of said Ward, which office he held the remainder of his days. In 1895 he was elected a member of the constitutional convention which drafted the organic law of the State of Utah. On the organization of the Utah Sugar Company, in 1889, he was made president of the same and held that office till his [p.639] demise. He was greatly interested in the Welsh population in Utah and was treasurer and director in the Eisteddfod organization. He had been attending a business meeting on Monday, March 14, 1898, when he accidentally fell down a shaft in the Co-operative Furniture Company's building, on Main Street, Salt Lake City, and was fatally hurt. From the effects of that accident he died three days later (March 17, 1898). At the time of his death the "Deseret News" said of him editorially: "He was a man of great ability and resource, while his philanthropy was a proverb. Was there a scheme on foot to benefit the people? He was one of the leaders in it. Was there a struggling enterprise that promised to develop a home resource, or furnish employment for home labor? 'Go to Elias Morris, he will take stock in it and give it the benefit of his advice and influence,' was the encouraging assurance. Was there a poor man out of work with a large and suffering family? 'Go to Elias Morris, he will give you something to do,' is what the poor man heard. Aside from large corporate enterprises, probably not a man has operated in this State during the past two decades who has furnished more employment to poor men than has Elias Morris. Probably no other could be named who has been lucre prominently identified with the development of home resources and the establishment of home enterprises than has he. He was a man of tireless energy, unceasing industry, unbounded sympathy and incorruptible integrity, and he enjoyed the esteem and confidence of all classes of the community. Men who differed with him in respect to religion and politics did not hesitate to acknowledge his high merits as a man and a citizen. To any community such a member as he is ever worth a thousand of those who by their 'wits' or their wealth seek profit out of other people's distresses, ignorance and cupidity. As a Latter-day Saint, the life of Elias Morris was the practical application and living elucidation of the principles he professed. The members of the Fifteenth Ward, over which he presided as Bishop, weep at the news of his death as they would at being told that their own father was dead; and like brethren of the flesh with his associates in the Priesthood mourn his departure. He lived by a standard of righteousness that was revealed from heaven, and he died with the absolute assurance that his works were Pleasing unto God, and entitled him to a resurrection with the just." |
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