Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Morris, Edward Joy

MORRIS, Edward Joy, author, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 16 July, 1815; d. there, 31 Dec., 1881. He was graduated at Harvard in 1836 and admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1842. While pursuing his studies in the law he was chosen to the assembly of Pennsylvania, in which he served in 1841-'3. He was then elected to congress as a Whig, serving in 1843-'5, and in 1850 he was sent as chargé d'affaires to Naples, which office he filled four years. In 1856 and 1858 he was again elected to congress, and in the latter year he was appointed by President Lincoln U. S. minister to Turkey, which office he held until 1870. Besides frequent contributions to various journals, he was the author of “Notes of a Tour through Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Arabia Petræa, to the Holy Land” (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1842); and translated from the German Alfred De Besse's “The Turkish Empire, Social and Political,” with additions (1854); “Afraja, or Life and Love in Norway,” by Theodore Mugge (1854); and “Corsica, Picturesque, Historical, and Social,” by Ferdinand Gregorovius (1856).