Researching Charles Morse

Born in Thomaston, Maine, Morse came to California originally in 1859, lured by the California Gold Rush. After mining for a couple of years, he found his way to Santa Clara in 1862. Santa Clara was then a small town with an agricultural setting. Morse engaged in several occupations, among them that of a house painter.

Charles Copeland Morse married Maria Josephine Victoria Langford in 1868. In 1877, he and A.L. Kellogg, a Methodist minister, pooled their money to buy a seed-growing enterprise, which became the leading seed producer on the West Coast. In 1930, the C.C. Morse and Co. merged with D.M. Ferry Co., another seed-producing business, and became the Ferry-Morse Seed Co.

In addition to being active in his business, he was one of the founders of the Bank of Santa Clara and the Advent Christian Church of Santa Clara. Charles and Maria had five children who grew up in the mansion that a local newspaper dubbed "the house that seed built."

The Charles Copeland Morse House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Morse was a prominent developer in Chicago, for whom Morse Avenue in far-north Rogers Park takes its name.

Morse was educated at Dedham, Essex and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He played cricket as a lower-order right-handed batsman for the Cambridge University side from 1842 to 1844 and appeared in the University Match against Oxford University in all three seasons. But his only innings of note in this period was a score of 82 made for the MCC against Cambridge University in 1844; this proved to be his highest first-class score and his only score over 50 in a 20-year cricket career spanning 40 first-class games. A contemporary report described his innings: "Mr. Morse played with caution, and now and then indulged in a severity of hitting which was really cricket."

Morse graduated from Cambridge University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1844 and then was admitted to the Inner Temple; he was called to the bar in 1848 but never practised as a barrister. Instead he settled at Aylsham and became a Justice of the Peace and deputy lieutenant of Norfolk. This career enabled him to continue to play cricket fairly frequently through to his 40s, though rarely did he make much impact as a batsman, and he did not bowl in major matches. In 1849, for example, he was a member of a very strong "England" side (the All-England Eleven) in a game against Surrey, playing alongside John Wisden, Alfred Mynn, Fuller Pilch and Jemmy Dean.