Notes for: Margaret Morrison
1840 Census, Lewis County, Virginia (now West Virginia):
William Lowther - head of household
1 male 70-79 (William)
2 females 5-9 (Charlotte & Rebecca Willard)
1 female 10-14 (Margaret Willard)
1 female 20-29 (Mary or Sarah)
1 female 40-49 (Sudna Lowther Willard)
1 female 70-79 (Margaret)
NOTE: The above identification of household members is highly speculative. While the presence of William and Margaret is clear, and the presence of their widowed daughter Sudna and her three daughters is very likely, the identification of the 20-29 year-old female as one of their daughters who "died young" is uncertain at best.
Conflicting information regarding Margaret Morrison, the wife of William Lowther, has been reported by numerous researchers. Minnie Kendall Lowther's "History of Ritchie County," pp. 12-14, reports that Margaret Morrison was born in North Carolina, one of several children of Archibald Morrison (a native of England) and a Miss Fooks. Along the same lines, an a 1908 application to Sons of the American Revolution (Member No. 20361) identifies the applicant's great-great-grandparents as William Lowther Jr, of Harrison Co Va, and Margaret Morrison, of North Carolina. But Don Norman's "Descendants of Robert Lowther" reports her parents as Alexander Morrison and Mary Lowther (dau of Robert Lowther & Aquilla Reese). The same parentage is reported by Jane Lowther Bolster in "The Families of Jesse Lowther and His Son Granville, with Their Descendants and Antecedents in America," p. 25. Linder's "Gibson and Related Families," pp. 400-401, also shows her to be the daughter of Alexander Morrison and Mary Lowther of Harrison County, but then on p. 429 identifies her parents as Archibald & ___ (Fooks) Morrison.
While neither Norman nor Bolster nor Linder cite specific sources, the information reported by Minnie Kendall Lowther does have a credible basis. Not only was she a reputable researcher in local history and genealogy, but she was also the great-granddaughter of this couple, William Lowther and Margaret Morrison, and she was in possession of their family Bible. From research or personal experience, she reported as follows:
"Near the year 1789, he (William Lowther) was married to Miss Margaret Morrison, who was born on the banks of the Yadkin river, in North Carolina, on May 1, 1768, and with her parents emigrated to Harrison county in her early womanhood. After their marriage, they settled near one mile below West Milford, on the farm that is now owned by the Highlands. Here they reared their family, and here they remained until near the year 1837, when they came to this county, where they spent the evening hours of their lives with their son, Archibald Lowther, at Holbrook. ... Mrs. Lowther was a woman of devout religious character, a Presbyterian in faith, and her old Bible, which was her daily companion, is now in the hands of the writer. It bears the date of "1790", and is still held together by the old leather string that she ever kept about it."
It is on this basis that we report this family as we have.