Rob Morris Home
Dr. Morris Gravesite is a short 1 block away where there is a Monument bearing his name.
Dr. Rob Morris was born Robert Williams Peckham on August 31, 1818 near Boston, Massachusetts. His parents, Robert and Charlotte, separated and Rob and his brother, John stayed with their father, while their mother, Charlotte, along with their infant daughter, Charlotte, returned to the family hometown of Taunton, Massachusetts. When his father died in 1825 Morris and John went to Taunton to live with their mother and sister. At the age of 18, Rob changed his surname to Morris and went westward to explore the new frontier. Most of his jobs initially, were those of headmaster and he met his wife, Charlotte Mendenhall, when he was teaching outside of Memphis. Morris joined freemasonry in Oxford, Mississippi, March 5, 1846 while he was teaching there for a boy’s academy.
In 1848, Morris introduced the degrees of the Order of the Eastern Star as a part of the freemasonry fraternal organizations which would include men and women. The Order of the Eastern Star soon grew to be the first international organization for women and still remains active today.
Morris was also an avid composer of poetry and by his later years, had composed several hundred Masonic poems which earned him the title of the 19th Century Poet Laureate of Freemasonry. In 1860, Morris moved his family to LaGrange, Kentucky where he taught at the Kentucky Masonic College. He earned a honorary title of PhD presented by the Grand Lodge of Kentucky. He died in 1888 and his buried with his wife, Charlotte at the Valley of Rest Cemetery in LaGrange.
The Rob Morris Home in La Grange, Kentucky is kept as a shrine to Rob Morris by the Kentucky Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. He and his wife are buried at the Valley of Rest Cemetery within the town limits of La Grange, KY. The Oldham County Historical Society presently owns the Presbyterian Church where he preached, now known as the Rob Morris Educational Building, and uses it for educational classes, meetings and public programs on their history center campus. It was remodeled and dedicated on August 20, 2006 by Freemasons and the Order of the Easter Star.
Rob Morris said there were two things in life dear to his heart: his little Presbyterian Church and Freemasonry. He taught at Funk Seminary which was a college for children of Freemasons. He also inducted Clara Barton into the Order of the Eastern Star.
