The Morris Family

Noah Morris was born in Connecticut about 1780. He married and lived in Vermont for a period before coming to Upper Canada around 1819, where they settled in the Black Settlement called Oro. Born in 1812, to Noah and Margaret Morris, John Nelson Morris would eventually become the patriarch of the Buxton Morris family. Born a free black in Vermont, Maine, John never knew the life of the enslaved...

During the Rebellion of 1837, Noah and his son Nelson were privates in the "coloured" company of the Militia. Noah and his family were active in the community of Oro, and a lot from their farm was used to build a school house. In 1837, the same year of the rebellion, John Nelson Morris married Catherine Barry of Ireland, with whom he had six children.

The Morris family arrived in the Buxton Settlement in the year 1874. Along with his eldest son Hiram, John drove a team of horses and a wagon carrying his family and their possessions from Oro to the Buxton Settlement. In Buxton, John settled on the land that he shared with his son Hiram on the tenth concession. Descendents of the Morris family still reside in Buxton today.