John Torrey Morse

John Torrey Morse Jr. (January 9, 1840 – March 28, 1937) was an American historian, attorney, and politician.

Biography John Torrey Morse was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 9, 1840, to John Torrey Morse Sr. and Lucy Cabot Jackson.

He graduated from Harvard College in 1860 after three years of study and read law in the office of John Lowell. He was admitted to the bar in 1862.

Personal life Morse married Fanny P. Hovey of Boston in 1865. They had a daughter, Charlotte, and two sons, Cabot Jackson Morse and John Torrey Morse III. They lived on Fairfield Street in Boston.

For the final thirty years of his life, Morse lived in Needham, Massachusetts. In October 1934, Morse and his daughter Charlotte were subject to a series of threatening notes demanding $175,000 or, in the alternative, threatening to kidnap Charlotte. After a heavy police presence at his Needham estate and federal and state investigation, the incident subsided.

Morse was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Historical Association. He was a member of the private Somerset Club, Algonquin Club, and The Country Club.

Death Morse died on March 27, 1937, at his home in Needham. At the time of his death, he was the earliest living graduate of Harvard College and second-oldest living (after fellow Boston attorney Henry Munroe Rogers, widower of Clara Kathleen Rogers).

Works The Law of Arbitration and Award (1872) Famous Trials: The Tichborne Claimant, Troppmann, Prince Pierre Bonaparte, Mrs. Wharton, The meteor, Mrs. Fair (1874) The Life of Alexander Hamilton (1876) Benjamin Franklin (1889) Thomas Jefferson (1890) Abraham Lincoln (1893) John Adams (1894) Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1896) John Quincy Adams (1899) A Treatise on the Law of Banks and Banking (1928)