Rev. Charles Reed Morton

1865–1903

BIRTH 20 MAY 1865 • "Campostella", Charlotte County,

Virginia

DEATH 11 APR 1903 • Casa Branca, Araguary, Brazil

Son of William Morton and Margaret E. Watkins

Married 1st:  05 Jun 1895 • Rockbridge County,

Virginia, USA

Mary Connell Thompson

1874–1898

BIRTH 5 SEP 1874 • Rockbridge County, Virginia, USA

DEATH 22 OCT 1898 • Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA

Died of Acute Myocarditis

 

 

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Find A Grave:

From "The Central Presbyterian" Vol. 34, No. 37 dated March 8, 1899:

Action of the Southern Brazil Mission on January 20th, 1899:
Having learned with deep sorrow of the death of Mrs. Mary Thompson, wife of the Rev. Charles R. Morton, the Southern Brazil Mission adopts the following resolutions, and orders that a copy of them be spread upon the minute book and that copies be sent also to Mr. Morton, Missionary, and to the other church papers:

1. In the death of Mrs. Morton, who passed away in the freshness and bloom of young womanhood, after three years of earnest and efficient service in Brazil, a home has been robbed of a faithful wife and devoted mother, and our mission circle has lost one of its brightest and most attractive members, and the cause of Christian missions in Brazil one of its most devoted friends and zealous workers.

2. Bowing in meek submissiveness to the will of Him whose "ways are higher than our ways," and who has called his young handmaiden to the higher service of his heavenly kingdom, we extend to our sorrowing brother our deep sympathy, praying that he may be sustained and cheered by the Holy Comforter and his little one borne tenderly in the loving arms of the great Shepherd.

From "Christian Observer" March 15, 1899:
Mrs. Mary Morton's Work in Brazil.
By Rev. H.S. Allyn, M.D., Sao Joao Del Rei, Brazil, January 9, 1899

Messrs. Editors – the home church papers brought us the sad news that our fellow worker, Mrs. Mary Thompson Morton – wife of Rev. C.R. Morton – passed through the shadow into the heavenly light on October 22 [1898]. While this was not altogether unexpected to her friends here, the news came to us as a great shock, for we had hoped that the ocean trip and the home-going might at least postpone for a time the fatal termination of her terrible malady – consumption. But the Lord willed otherwise. …….

May the Lord remember the needs of her unfinished work (or rather, the unfinished work she gave her life for), and may he remember, and be very near and dear to her bereft companion as he returns to take up his life-work here single-handed, but especially may the Good Father Remember little Edna in her great loss of a mother's care and love, is the prayer of one of Mrs. Morton's fellow-workers.
 

Married 2nd:  1900

Lucy Magill Hall

1877–1956

BIRTH 6 NOV 1877 • Santa Barbara, São Paulo, Brazil

DEATH 3 SEP 1956 • Sanford, Lee, North Carolina, USA

Daughter of Charles Moses Hall and Mary Elizabeth Miller

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(The following is loosely translated from Portuguese)

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Charles Morton was born on May 20, 1865, in Compostella, Charlotte County, Virginia. He studied at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington and at the  Seminary  Theological Union,  annexed to the  Hampden- Sydney  College, in the same state, where it was formed in 1894, having been a colleague of the Rev. Carlyle R. Womeldorf. He was ordained by the Presbytery of  Roanoke in June  1894. He arrived in Brazil in August  1895, accompanied by his young wife of twenty-one, Mary Thompson Morton. They initially worked in Lavras. In December 1895, they went to Araguari, a field that had been herded by the Rev. Frank Cowan, who died in 1894. In that city, there was a school run by the widow missionary, Kate Bias Cowan, who later went to Santa Luzia de Goiás (now Luziânia).

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Morton traveled extensively through the Minas Triangle, receiving many people for professions in various places. It revived the itinerant evangelistic tradition of the pioneer John Boyle and was the first to preach in Patos de Minas, Carmo do Paranaíba, Arapuá and Rio Paranaíba, besides  several  points  in  Goiás. In one of his preaching in the Córrego da Onça, near Bagagem (South Star), got to know a man called David de Melo, who had been reading the Bible and had been evangelized by a Rev. Boyle parishioner.  Morton went to the house of David, spent three days reading and explaining the Scriptures, and the communion of the host's church, his wife Maria Isabel, and the three daughters of the presence of neighbors invited to the occasion. David faced many difficulties in parental resistance, which helped to influence his married, Manoel de Melo, who had also been reading the Bible and came to convert, having set in a country estate near Mount Carmel. The couple was greeted by profession of faith by the Rev. Morton on July 15, 1898, and Manoel became a mainstay of the gospel in that region. Later, the other five Melo brothers also converted with their families, contributing to the emergence of Presbyterian churches in Douradoquara, Água Limpa, Monte Carmelo, Abbey of the Dourados, and Perdizes. Maria de Melo Chaves, the eldest woman of  Manoel de  Melo, tells this inspiring story in the book  Bandeirantes da  Fé, published in 1947. His brother Zaqueu de Melo, born in Monte Carmelo in 1914, was a Presbyterian pastor, state deputy, and professor for many years in the city of Londrina Paraná, where he founded Iin1945 the Philadelphia Institute, current University Center Philadelphia (UNIFIL), linked to the Presbyterian Church of Londrina.

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With his health shaken, Morton's wife went to Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1898, passing away a few days after arriving and leaving a little girl. After the wife's death, Morton spent a year in Richmond, doing postgraduate studies at the Seminary Union, and returned to Brazil. 

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In 1900, he married Lucy Hall, daughter of a couple of American immigrants residing in Vila Americana. Lucy was born in Brazil and studied with the missionaries in Campinas and Lavras. Four of her sisters also married missionaries and a cousin, Katherine, was the wife of Rev. William Calvin Porter. The Morton couple had a daughter, Elizabeth Margaret Morton, and a son who was born on June 19, 1903, after the death of his father and received his name.

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From Araguari, Morton moved to White House, State of São Paulo, in 1901.  He was affected by yellow fever and died in an isolation hospital on 5 April.  1903. He was the last of the missionaries who had been victimized by this disease, by George W. Thompson, John W. Dabney, Edward Lane, and Edgar M. Pinkerton. Morton was supported by the Presbyterian Church of Durham, North Carolina, as its pastor missionary. Lucy Morton worked for many years with the Mission West in Araguari, Barretos, and other places (1903-1908, 1924-1930. On September 25, 1907, the Revista of the  National  Missions reported that Lucy had donated to the  Church of  Araguari a   harmonium which she herself played in the services.

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According to some authors, the death of the missionary was surrounded by a certain mystery When  Morton was affected by yellow fever, the police chief, the enemy of evangelicals,   determined his removal to the Holy House, where he died shortly thereafter. Rev. James R. Woodson reported that many years after Morton's death, the news broke that an old black man confessed to having given him a poison remedy.

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Bibliography:

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▪ Lessa, Annaes , 485, 644s, 653, 660s.

▪ Ferreira, History of IPB , I: 506-508; II: 34, 366.

▪ Charlotte Kemper, "Rev. CR Morton, " The Missionary (June 1903), 256s.

▪ A General Catalog of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, 1807-1924 .

▪ Keys, Bandeirantes da Fé, 27-31, 61-65, 69s, 187. See Hahn, Protestant Cult in the

Brazil , 254-258.

▪ Bear, Mission to Brazil , 27s.

▪ Silva e Silva, Presbyterian Church of Araguari , 52-55.

▪ Ferreira, Little History of the West Mission , 40s

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Children: