Volume III - ElectricCanadian.com

OF- 339\\/ILLIAM AGNEWV VDENNY MORSE,Judge of the County Courtfor District No. 5, NovaScotia, including the associatecounties of Pictou andCumberland, the two largestmining and manufacturingcounties in the Lower Provinces,was born Januaryi3th, 1837, at Aniherst,Cumberland County, N.S.His father, James ShannonMorse, was in publiclife forover forty years, and wasthe grandson of an officer,Joseph Morse, who servedunder Lord Amherst, andin connection with MajorAllan, a Scotch officer, andJoshua Winslow, and otherofficers, laid the foundationof the firstEnglish settlement,in 1763, at the headof the Bay of Fundy, calledthe Town of Cumberland,named after the Duke ofCumberland. His mother,Augusta Agnew Kinnear,was the granddaughter ofAndrew Kinnear, Esq., anofficer who served in theStates during the Rebellion of 1 776, andafterwards was the barrack master andcommander at Fort Cumberland, thestrongest fort at the head of the Bay ofFundy, and which commanded theisthmus of Chignecto. Judge Morsewas educated at a private school, underDr. Hea, and at Sackville Academy,Westmoreland County. He studied lawwith the late Sir William Young, ChiefJustice of Nova Scotia, who afterwardsoffered him a partnership, but he enteredinto business with Hon. LeonardShannon, of Halifax, and continuedwith him for twenty years, when hereturned to Amherst, and became Judgeof Probates, on the death of his brother,and afterwards accepted the position ofCounty Court Judge. In religion,Judge Morse is an Episcopalian, and inpolitics, his sympathies were with thelate Hon. Joseph Howe. He was married,December, 1873, to Ella FrancesRebecca Boggs, daughter of RichardBeaumont Boggs, Esq., a descendantof Dr. Boggs, who was selected by theBritish Government to conduct Loyalistsfrom Boston to Guysboro andHalifax, and Isabella Jane Russell,daughter of Capt. Russell, an officerin the Queen's Eight Regiment. Hehas five sons and two daughters, living.