John V. Morton

John V. Morton was the brother of Louisa Ann Morton Perry, the wife of Daniel Perry. Daniel and Louisa Ann Perry lived at Duke, Texas. Also living at Duke were the Moses and Mary Shipman family. Moses and Mary had a daughter named Elizabeth Shipman that married John V. Morton. This couple had 3 children who were the grandchildren of William and Nancy Morton and Moses and Mary Shipman. None of the children survived to adults.


John V. Morton, son of William Morton, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1795, and married Elizabeth Shipman December 22nd, 1836, She was born in 1819. His father, William Morton died in May 1833. John Morton was in the battle of San Jacinto.

Fort Bend county was formed in February 1838. The race for sheriff of Fort Bend county involved five men, John V. Morton, Randall Jones, Hiram M. Thompson, James Perry and Adam Stafford, but the two chief contestants were James Perry and John V. Morton. These were Daniel Perry's brother and brother-in-law. Daniel served as election judge. John V. Morton was elected.

On February 7, 1843, Sheriff John V. Morton was shot and killed in a dispute with his deputy George W. Pleasants. The details of the incident are not known.


MORTON, JOHN V. (ca. 1805-1843). John V. Morton, early Texas soldier and lawman, son of William Morton, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, about 1805. He moved to Texas with his family in 1822 and lived at the Morton ferry near the site of present Fort Bend or Richmond. In 1836 he married Elizabeth Shipman, a daughter of Daniel Shipman. According to one authority Morton served in Company A under Andrew Briscoe at the battle of San Jacinto and by June 1836 was enrolled in Nicholas Lynch's company. In December 1836 he was a lieutenant in the company of Robert D. McCaskey. In 1837 he polled ninety-five votes to win election as first sheriff of Fort Bend County. He also operated his ferry from 1838 to 1843. While serving as sheriff, he was killed at Richmond by George W. Pleasants on February 7, 1843.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Houston Dixon and Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Heroes of San Jacinto (Houston: Anson Jones, 1932). "The Morton Family," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 3 (January 1900). Clarence Wharton, Wharton's History of Fort Bend County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1939).


PLEASANTS, GEORGE WASHINGTON (1809-1892). George Washington Pleasants, soldier in the Texas Revolution, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on March 30, 1809, and moved to Texas in 1830. He first settled in Columbia, but went out in the country to live after the cholera epidemic of 1833 nearly depopulated the town. When the revolution began in 1835, Pleasants went with the revolutionary army to San Antonio, where he participated in all the fighting under the command of Col. Benjamin R. Milam. After fighting in the battle of San Jacinto, he settled in Fort Bend County. When the county was officially organized in 1837, he acted as deputy sheriff under John V. Morton. On June 24, 1843, he married Jane Brush; they had seven children. Both George and Jane Pleasants died in Blanco, Texas, while visiting their daughter, Mrs. Emma West. He died on January 7, 1892, and she died on November 1, 1896. Both are buried in Morton Cemetery, Richmond.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Andrew Jackson Sowell, History of Fort Bend County (Houston: Coyle, 1904; rpt, Richmond, Texas: Fort Bend County Historical Museum, 1974). Clarence Wharton, Wharton's History of Fort Bend County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1939).

 


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