Joy Morton

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Joy Morton (September 27, 1855 – May 10, 1934) founded the Morton Salt Company and The Morton Arboretum.

Morton grew to manhood in Nebraska City, Nebraska in Nebraska Territory. His mother, Caroline Joy, was an accomplished artist, musician, and gardener. His father, Julius Sterling Morton, a newspaperman by vocation and a leader in Nebraska territorial and state politics, was central to, the founding of Arbor Day. Julius Sterling Morton served as Secretary of Agriculture in President Grover Cleveland’s second term.

Career

At 15, Morton began to manage the family farm and estate. He also took a job at the local bank. By age 18, he had fallen 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 and Aurora, Illinois before joining a Chicago salt distribution company in 1880. He soon owned the firm, naming it Joy Morton and Company, and branched out into the distribution and processing of agricultural products in Nebraska and Illinois.

Brand names

Among Morton’s brands were Morton Salt and Argo Starch. In 1910, Morton named his salt company Morton Salt and began to acquire production and processing facilities around the country. Meanwhile he supported the development of teleprinters and formed the Morkrum company (later Morkrum-Kleinschmidt) with the inventor Howard Krum. The company was later sold to American Telephone & Telegraph Company in 1930 for $30,000,000.

Family

In 1880, Morton married Carrie Jane Lake, the daughter of Nebraska Supreme Court Judge, George Lake. They had two children, Jean, who married Joseph Cudahy of the Chicago meat packing company, and Sterling, who married Preston Owsley, the granddaughter of Carter Henry Harrison, a popular mayor of post-Civil War Chicago. Two years after Morton’s first wife died in 1915, he married Margaret Gray, who became a local leader in health care.

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; the latter made possible the construction of buildings above railway lines, such as the Merchandise Mart and, later, Illinois Center. 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 World War I.

Morton Arboretum

In 1922, Morton established The Morton Arboretum on 178 acres (0.72 km²) of land adjacent to his estate in Lisle, Illinois. Today, the Morton Arboretum has grown to 1,700 acres (6.9 km²). As Morton began to define the direction the 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 fathers death he used Arbor Lodge as his summer home. As he started 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.

Sources

• Ballowe, James, [1] "A Man of Salt and Trees: The Life of Joy Morton", Northern Illinois University Press, 2009.
• Ballowe, James, with Michelle Klonowski (designer). A Great Outdoor Museum. The Story of the Morton Arboretum, 2003.
• The Sterling Morton Library archives, The Morton Arboretum
• [2] The Chicago History Museum (Morton Family papers).
• The Nebraska Historical Society (J. Sterling Morton archives)

Persondata
Name	Morton, Joy
Alternative names
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Date of birth	September 27, 1855
Place of birth
Date of death	May 10, 1934
Place of death