The Morrises of Merrill Mountain: Four Generations of an Upland South Family

My book may be called a socio-genealogy. It centers on a man and a mountain: James Henry Morris (1833-1916) and Merrill Mountain, an elevation where he and other members of his family made their home from 1844 to 1926. The volume was composed to inform not only descendants of J. H. Morris but also genealogists of other families and students of the region's history.

The text is divided into three main sections.

Part I (chapters 1-9) presents the geographical and historical setting in the Great Bend area of North Alabama and covers the long, eventful life of James Henry Morris. During the Civil War, he was arrested and sentenced by local Confederates for his Union sympathies. But in the next two decades he became an influential citizen of the mountain, developing a personal estate of about 500 acres and establishing a local post office. Married three times and the father of twelve children, he was an evangelist for over twenty years.

Part II (chapters 10-11) presents biographies of his siblings, who also lived part of their lives on Merrill Mountain.

Part III (chapters 12-25) contains history and biography related to the family of Thomas Jefferson Morris (1874-1931), youngest son of J. H. Morris, and his wife, Ada Rice Morris (1877-1964). This historical and biographical material is presented with the aim of exhibiting the social development of the Morrises and families of their class from about 1896 to 2022.

The book contains 89 photographs, 19 maps and plats, 18 family trees, 104 sidebar "topical notes," 12 tables, and endnotes. There are four appendices, a list of sources, and an index.