Joy Sterling Morton (September 27, 1855 – May 10, 1934) was an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding

Morton Salt Morton Salt is an American food company producing salt for food, water conditioning, industrial, agricultural, and road/highway use. Based in Chicago, the business is North America's leading producer and marketer of salt. It is a subsidiary of h ...

and establishing the

Morton Arboretum The Morton Arboretum, in Lisle, Illinois, United States, is a public garden, and outdoor museum with a library, herbarium, and program in tree research including the Center for Tree Science. Its grounds, covering 1,700 acres (6.9 square kilometres ...

Lisle, Illinois Lisle ( ) is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 22,390 at the 2010 census, and in 2019 the population was recorded to be 23,270. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Illinois Technology and Resea ...

Biography

He was born on September 27, 1855 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Caroline Joy, was an accomplished artist, musician, and gardener. His father,

Julius Sterling Morton Julius Sterling Morton (April 22, 1832 – April 27, 1902) was a Nebraska newspaper editor and politician who served as President Grover Cleveland's Secretary of Agriculture. He was a prominent Bourbon Democrat, taking a conservative position on ...

, a newspaperman and a leader in Nebraska

territorial A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

and state politics, was central to the founding of

Arbor Day Arbor Day (or Arbour in some countries) is a secular day of observance in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant trees. Today, many countries observe such a holiday. Though usually observed in the spring, the date varies, dependi ...

. J. Sterling Morton served as

United States Secretary of Agriculture The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments. The department includes several organi ...

in the second administration (1893–1897) of President

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...

. In 1880, Morton married Carrie Jane Lake, the daughter of

Nebraska Supreme Court The Nebraska Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Nebraska. The court consists of a chief justice and six associate justices. Each justice is initially appointed by the governor of Nebraska; using the Missouri Plan, each jus ...

Judge George Lake. They had two children, Jean, who married Joseph Cudahy of a Chicago meatpacking company, and Sterling, who married Sophia Preston Owsley, a granddaughter of Carter Henry Harrison, a popular mayor of post-Civil War

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Two years after Joy Morton’s first wife died in 1915, he married Margaret Gray, who became a local leader in health care. At 15, Morton began to manage the family farm and estate. He also took a job at the local bank. At age 18, he fell ill with spinal meningitis. Needing physical exercise and an outdoor environment for full recovery, he farmed his own land for two years. Later, he worked for railroads in Omaha, Nebraska, and Aurora, Illinois, before joining a Chicago salt distribution company in 1880. By 1886, he owned the firm, naming it Joy Morton and Company, and branched out into the distribution and processing of agricultural products in Nebraska and Illinois. In 1910, he incorporated his salt firm as the Morton Salt Company. He remained the company's president until 1930, when Daniel Peterkin, Sr. became president while Morton served as chairman of the board until his death in 1934.

Brand names

Among Morton's brands are Morton Salt and Argo Starch. Morton also supported the development of the teleprinter and formed the Morkrum company with the inventor Howard Krum. The company was later renamed to Morkrum-Kleinschmidt, then to

Teletype Corporation The Teletype Corporation, a part of American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Western Electric manufacturing arm since 1930, came into being in 1928 when the Morkrum-Kleinschmidt Company changed its name to the name of its trademark equipment. ...

. It was sold to

American Telephone & Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

in 1930 for $30,000,000.

Civic duties

Morton took an active interest in the future of Chicago, chairing the Chicago Commercial Club’s railway terminal committee for Daniel Burnham's and Edward Bennett’s 1909 Plan of Chicago. Morton also served on the Chicago Plan Commission for 25 years and was a staunch advocate of inland waterway transportation and building air rights. His advocacy of air rights in Chicago helped make possible the construction of buildings above railway lines, such as the Merchandise Mart. Throughout his life, Morton believed that inland waterways were essential to the development of commerce and to the growth of cities. Morton Salt was the last firm to use the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Hennepin Canal to transport goods from Chicago to the Quad Cities via the Mississippi River before the United States entered into World War I.

Morton Arboretum

In 1922, Morton established the

on of land adjacent to his estate in

. Today, the Morton Arboretum has grown to . As Morton began to define the direction his arboretum should take, he sought the advice of Charles Sprague Sargent, the director of Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum. They agreed that the Morton Arboretum should exist to display woody plants that grow in temperate zones around the world, to educate the public about them, and to conduct research on their management and preservation.

Arbor Lodge

After his father's death, he hired the architect Jarvis Hunt to redesign and enlarge Arbor Lodge into a 52-room mansion and used it as his family's summer home. After he began his own arboretum, Morton honored his father by giving Arbor Lodge, the family estate known as the birthplace of Arbor Day, to the State of Nebraska as its first state park. Arbor Lodge is officially known as Arbor Lodge State Historical Park and Arboretum.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morton, Joy Businesspeople from Chicago Businesspeople in the salt industry People from Nebraska City, Nebraska 1855 births 1934 deaths