Judge Henry Solon Kane Morison

Judge not, lest ye be the one elected to be judge.

Judge Morison was somewhere on the train the night of the Thaxton train wreck, but Norfolk & Western was not exactly sure where. In the official report put together by the railroad, Morison was listed as “location on train not known”. ¹

Morison was in his early-forties, hailed from Estillville, Virginia (now Gate City), and served as a judge in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Virginia. ^{2 3} In 1894, he ran as the democratic nominee for congress in Virginia’s ninth district. ⁴

He was married to Annis Kyle and the couple had six children together. A stroke took Morison from this world on November 9, 1899, as he sat with his family at home in his library.^{5 6}

At the time of his death, Judge Morison was very confident in what awaited him in the afterlife. He was a devout Christian and was fond of quoting the Bible in court. This particular habit once caused an attorney on the losing end of a particular debate to joke, “If Judge Morison would read more law, and less scripture, he would make a good judge.” ⁷

Do you have more information about Henry Solon Kane Morison? If you think he might have been an ancestor of yours, or if you have some additional information that you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!

Related Links
Burial site for Judge H S K Morison

Sources

1. Fourteenth Annual Report of The Railroad Commissioner of the State of Virginia, J.H. O’Bannon Superintendent of Public Printing, Richmond, VA, 1890: p. xlv. http://books.google.com/books?id=CFopAAAAYAAJ
2. Ayers, H. J. “Hon. H. S. K. Morison.” Edited by George Bryan. Virginia Law Register (J. P. Bell Company) IX (1904): 763–770.
3. “Death of Judge H.S.K. Morison”, The Tazewell Republican (Tazewell, VA), November 16, 1899, Vol. VIII., Number 46: p. 1, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95079154/1899-11-16/ed-1/seq-1/
4. Ibid.
5. See note 2 above.
6. See note 3 above.
7. See note 2 above.