Buckner Stith Morris (August 19, 1800 – December 16, 1879) served as

Mayor of Chicago The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and r ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

(1838–1839) for the Whig Party. Morris married Evelina Barker in

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virgini ...

in 1832 and the couple moved to Chicago in 1834 where Morris established a law practice with

J. Young Scammon Jonathan Young Scammon (July 27, 1812 – March 17, 1890) was an early settler in Chicago, Illinois, arriving in the city in 1835. He went on to become politically important as a lawyer, banker, and newspaper publisher. His first wife was Ma ...

. He helped to create the Chicago Lyceum, the city's first literary society. By 1835, however, Morris had left his partnership with Scammon, and was practicing law with Edward Casey. He was elected mayor of Chicago in

1838 Events January–March * January 10 – A fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London. * January 11 – At Morristown, New Jersey, Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale give the first public demonstration ...

and went would subsequently serve as Alderman from the 6th Ward from 1839-1840 and again in 1844, resigning during his second tenure as alderman. He unsuccessfully ran for the office of

Illinois Secretary of State The Secretary of State of Illinois is one of the six elected executive state offices of the government of Illinois, and one of the 47 secretaries of states in the United States. The Illinois Secretary of State keeps the state records, laws, lib ...

in 1852 under the Whig ticket and served as a Lake County Circuit Court Judge from 1853 to 1855. Following Evelina's death in 1847, he married Eliza Stephenson in 1850. Eliza died in 1855. Morris died in Chicago in 1879. Morris was outspoken in his opposition to the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

, and appeared to sympathize with the " Copperheads." In 1864, he was arrested for aiding in a Confederate attempt to free prisoners of war from Camp Douglas in Chicago. He was held for 9 months, but was then exonerated by a military court. Being unable, while so detained, to attend to his business affairs, he lost most of his assets through

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mort ...

s. Incensed over the treatment of their ancestor, his heirs refused to donate his papers to the

Chicago Historical Society Chicago History Museum is the museum of the Chicago Historical Society (CHS). The CHS was founded in 1856 to study and interpret Chicago's history. The museum has been located in Lincoln Park since the 1930s at 1601 North Clark Street at the in ...

when they were requested. The first use recorded in the

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

of the phrase

to hell in a hand basket "Going to hell in a handbasket", "going to hell in a handcart", "going to hell in a handbag", "go to hell in a bucket", "sending something to hell in a handbasket" and "something being like hell in a handbasket" are variations on an allegorical loc ...

, is in ''The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details'', by I. Windslow Ayer, in alleging that, at a meeting of the

Order of the Sons of Liberty The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It pl ...

, Judge Morris of the Circuit Court of Illinois said: "Thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would 'send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.'"Ayer, I. Windslow,
The Great North-Western Conspiracy in All Its Startling Details
'' Chicago: Rounds and James, 1865. p. 47. Retrieved October 30, 2010 Note that he was portrayed as Judge Morris in that anecdote dated 1865, although his time on the bench was of the previous decade. Morris was a member of Chicago's oldest meeting Freemason Lodge
Oriental Lodge # 33

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Buckner 1800 births 1879 deaths Burials at Rosehill Cemetery Illinois state court judges Chicago City Council members Mayors of Chicago Illinois Whigs 19th-century American politicians Illinois Know Nothings People from Augusta, Kentucky American anti-war activists 19th-century American judges Copperheads (politics)

See also

References

External links