Burrell Wilson Morris: Sheriff, Legislator, and Confederate Veteran (1846–1929)

Burrell Wilson “Burr” Morris, sheriff and state legislator, was born on July 5, 1846, to Thomas Jefferson Morris and Glorvina Lucretia (Smith) Morris, in Red River County, Texas. By 1856 Morris’s father had died, and his mother married Charnell Hightower in Cherokee County. On October 25, 1861, at the age of fifteen, Morris volunteered for service in the Confederate Army. Enlisting as a private in the Tenth Texas Infantry under Capt. William R. Shannon, he served for the duration of the Civil War. On June 8, 1871, at the age of twenty-four, Morris married Julia Ann Craig, a native of Arkansas, in Ellis County, Texas. The couple had nine children who lived to adulthood.

By 1875 Morris had moved to Granbury, Hood County. Tax rolls for that year show that his taxable property, which primarily consisted of livestock, was worth $327. In 1878 Morris was elected tax assessor for Hood County, and four years later he was elected to the office of tax collector and sheriff. Morris served as sheriff until 1894. In the words of Hood County Historian Thomas T. Ewell, “While sheriff he acquired the reputation of a fearless and successful hunter of criminals, possessing the qualities of a natural detective.”

In 1894 Morris was nominated to represent state House District 80, a floterial district composed of Hood, Parker, and Tarrant counties, in the district Democratic convention on the first ballot. Both Tarrant and Hood county delegates voted decisively for Morris, and the nomination of his opponent, Isaac Newton Roach of Parker County, was withdrawn to make Morris’s nomination unanimous. This was reportedly done “amid loud applause.” Although the free silver faction of his party comprised a majority of delegates at the convention, by 1896 Morris was identified with the “sound money” Democrats and did not support the Presidential nomination of William Jennings Bryan that year.

Morris began his term as state legislator in January 1895. During the Twenty- fourth Texas Legislature’s regular session, he served on five committees: Commerce and Manufacturers; Judiciary No. 2; Revenue and Taxation; Roads, Bridges and Ferries; and State Affairs. He introduced two bills in the session, both of which were unsuccessful. The first was House Bill No. 239, which would have required anyone operating for public amusement “any pool, billiard, bagatelle, pigeonhole or jennie lind table” to pay a bond of $500 guaranteeing that no under-age males would be allowed to enter the rooms where such tables were kept. This bill was substituted for a similar one. The other was House Bill No. 476, the object of which was to “better define and enforce the local option laws of the State of Texas.” This bill was rejected in committee.

After Morris’s single term in the legislature, he operated a grocery store in Granbury. He continued to be active in state and local politics. In 1898 and 1900 he was elected to serve as an alderman for Granbury. In 1904 Morris again ran for a seat in the state legislature but was defeated in the Democratic primary by William E. Douglass, also of Granbury. In 1912 Morris unsuccessfully ran for Hood County tax assessor. In 1914 he supported James E. Ferguson for governor. In February, after being sent as a delegate to a Democratic convention in Fort Worth, which was called off by the anti-Ferguson minority to prevent Ferguson’s endorsement, Morris helped organize an ad hoc convention composed of the other Ferguson delegates. During the 1920 presidential campaign Morris broke with the Democratic party and joined the short-lived American party, which supported Ferguson in his third-party bid for president.

Morris was a Mason and active in the United Confederate Veterans. He and his wife Julia were active members of the Baptist Church. At the age of eighty-two, Burrell Morris died of flu on February 5, 1929. He is buried at Granbury Cemetery.