Image: Receipt for a Library Company share, 1733.

We continue our monthly “Shareholder Spotlight” series by taking a closer look at share #528 and its second owner, Margaret Morris (1737-1816).

Shareholders have always been the backbone of the Library Company of Philadelphia. Starting with the first group of fifty tradesmen who formed the library in 1731, shareholders have provided crucial financial support each year for our mission to “pour forth benefits for the common good.”

We keep careful track of who has owned each historic share, and our list of 9,800+ shareholders includes signers of the Declaration and Constitution, merchants, doctors, soldiers, scientists, artists, philanthropists, politicians, and much more.

Share #528

This share was first issued to Charles L. Bunting on July 8, 1789.

Just a month earlier, the Directors of the Library Company had gotten approval from its members to sell as many new shares as possible to help raise funds for their planned building at 5th and Chestnut Streets. Bunting was the 26th person to purchase one of those new shares, and the new building opened on New Year’s Day in 1791.[i]

Bunting maintained the share for six years total. He sold his share to a “Margaret Morris” on August 24, 1795.

Library Company records provide no other details to identify Morris specifically, but she is almost certainly Margaret Hill Morris (1737-1816), whose son Richard Hill Morris (1762-1841) had become the Library Company’s Treasurer just three months earlier. He served as Treasurer in 1795, 1796 and 1797, and he was one of two witnesses to Margaret’s share purchase on August 24, 1795.

Image: Margaret Morris’s 1795 share transaction was witnessed by her son, Richard Hill Morris, as noted in the bottom left corner of the page. Share Record Book B, volume 172, Library Company of Philadelphia records (MSS00270).

By the time Margaret became a Library Company shareholder in 1795, she had been a widow for many years. She had moved her family to Burlington, NJ in 1766 after the death of her husband so she could be closer to her sister’s family. There, she opened a medical and apothecary practice.[ii]

She is remembered today for keeping a rich account of the Revolutionary War from December 1776 to June 1777, which was apparently intended for her sister Milcah Martha Moore living in Montgomery Square, PA. Her grandson and Library Company Librarian John Jay Smith (1798-1881) published the journal in 1836.[iii]

Image: Margaret Morris, Private Journal, Kept During a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister (Philadelphia, 1836). Gift of Mrs. S. Marguerite Brenner.

While she lived in Burlington, Margaret was a member of the Library Company of Burlington in the 1770s, but she eventually moved back to Philadelphia after the end of the war. Her family letters describe how she and her family suffered through the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic in the city.[iv]

Image: This portrait of Margaret Hill Morris appeared in John Jay Smith, ed. Letters of Doctor Richard Hill and His Children (Philadelphia, 1854). The artist is presumed to be Margaret’s grandson, Morris Smith, who acquired share #528 after her death. Morris Smith, Morris, Margaret Hill, 1737?-1816. ([Philadelphia], [1854?]). Engraving.

Two years after that epidemic, Margaret became a Library Company shareholder. She maintained the Library Company share until her death. Her executor William Allinson sold the share to Margaret’s grandson Morris Smith on April 26, 1817.

The share has been owned by 13 people total, including five members of the Bispham family.

Not yet a shareholder?

Share #528 is currently available. We work hard to match potential shareholders with historic shares that match their interests, and we would love to match you with Margaret Morris’s share or another option.

You can become a Library Company shareholder with an initial gift of $500. To learn more, visit our website or reach out to our Development Office at development@librarycompany.org.

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[i] June 1, 1789 minutes, Directors Minutes Volume 3, volume 165, Library Company of Philadelphia records (MSS00270).

[ii] For much more on Margaret’s work as a healer, see Susan Brandt, “’Getting into a Little Business’: Margaret Hill Morris and Women’s Medical Entrepreneurship during the American Revolution,” Early American Studies Vol. 13, No. 4 (fall 2015), 774-807.

[iii] Margaret Morris, Private Journal, Kept During a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister (Philadelphia, 1836).

[iv] Margaret’s membership in the Library Company of Burlington is noted in Brandt, 798. For more about Margaret’s experiences during the 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic, see Jacquelyn C. Miller, “The Wages of Blackness: African American Workers and the Meanings of Race during Philadelphia’s 1793 Yellow Fever Epidemic,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 129, No. 2 (April 2005), 163-194.