James Morrison

Birth year is an approximate calculation from his age carved on the headstone. This is intended to attract researchers so that they will read this analysis. However, his Riverstown Anglican Church burial record states that he was buried on 16 October 1879, which if they held true to a general contemporary pattern of waiting two days before the burial then he actually died on about the 14th of October, 1879. As for the error on the headstone, that was probably laid in over thirty years later, after his son Arthur died, so it is easy to see how someone could have made a mistake. Furthermore, that church record states his age at death to be ninety-two, therefore he was born in County Sligo sometime during the 1786 to 1794 period.
His parents are unknown although he is said to have been a cousin to Robert "County Bob" Morrison. According to an early twentieth century newspaper account this family came to Ontario in 1850 and then to Arthur Township in 1854. James and Jane Morrison had nine children: Robert Black, Arthur, John S., James (Lame Jimmy), Matthew, William C. (California Bill), Mary Ann, Eliza and Sarah Jane.

Notes concerning a possibility to one Jane Little as wife: Since Jane Little was too young to have borne his first five children, none of his children's Ontario death registers list a mother (only a few list the father), other references I have from Morrison researchers state his wife was Jane maiden name unknown, and since the known Jane Little who died in Peel County fits perfectly with another James Morrison from Sligo in another area of Ontario (Peel Co., he died Halton Co. 1888) , I am ruling her out as the wife of this James Morrison and the mother of his children. All other factors aside, she was just way too young.

James Morisson is my great great grandfather.