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Morse (Ephraim W.) Papers
MSS 0079
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: Ephraim W. Morse Papers
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0079
Physical Description:
2 Linear feet
(5 archives boxes and 2 oversize folders)
Date (inclusive): 1839-1884
Abstract: Papers of Ephraim W. Morse (1823-1906), a San Diego merchant, real estate broker, insurance agent, and city promoter. Materials
date from 1861 to 1884 and include storebooks and account books for Morse's Old Town and New Town stores; correspondence;
cased daguerreotypes and ambrotypes of unidentified subjects; and scrapbooks.
Languages:
English
.
Scope and Content of Collection
Papers of Ephraim W. Morse, a San Diego merchant, real estate broker, insurance agent, and city promoter. Materials include
storebooks and account books for Morse's Old Town and New Town stores; correspondence; cased daguerreotypes and ambrotypes
of unidentified subjects; and scrapbooks.
Arranged in four series: 1) FINANCIAL RECORDS, 2) SCRAPBOOKS, 3) PHOTOGRAPHS, and 4) CORRESPONDENCE.
[The following information was taken from Earl Samuel McGhee's thesis E.W. Morse, Pioneer Merchant and Co-Founder of San Diego
(1950).]
Ephraim W. Morse was born in West Amesbury, Massachusetts on October 16, 1823.
He attended Newburyport High School from 1838 to 1841, where he learned bookkeeping. Leaving New England at age twenty-six,
Morse joined the Gold Rush to northern California. In April of 1850, he ventured to the tiny settlement of San Diego, population
approximately 800. Morse opened a general store, located in Davis' Addition. Shortly after this, he entered into a partnership
with Thomas Whaley and relocated to the plaza of Old Town. By April 1854, Morse had dissolved his association with Whaley
and moved across the street until financial problems forced him out of business in 1859. In 1861, he opened a new store in
Old Town which continued until February 1869 when he sold out to Philip Crosthwaite and Thomas Whaley. Morse then moved to
Horton's Addition and opened a real estate and insurance office, serving as an agent for the Phoenix Insurance Company of
Hartford, Connecticut; the Home Insurance Company of New York; and the North British and Mercantile Insurance Company of London
and Edinburgh.
During the early decades of the city, Morse was called upon to hold many important government positions including: city trustee
(1854-55, 1867), county supervisor (1860), city treasurer (1878), county treasurer (1858-59, 1861-1862), associate justice
(1852), secretary of the board of trade (1852-1864), school commissioner and trustee (1853-55), and public administrator (1853,
1875). In 1856, he earned his license to practice law and became a notary public. Morse invested heavily in land and actively
promoted San Diego. He sought to make San Diego a western terminus of the railroad as director of the San Diego and Gila Railroad
Company; helped to organize the Bank of San Diego in 1870; helped develop the San Diego Flume Company; and presided over the
San Diego Bee Keepers Association in 1877. Morse continued to live in San Diego until he was eighty-three years of age. Having
finally witnessed substantial city growth, Ephraim W. Morse died on January 17, 1906,
Ephraim W. Morse Papers, MSS 79. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Acquired 1976
Ephraim W. Morse Family Papers, MSS 689. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
This collection was digitized in 2016 for inclusion in the Adam Matthew subscription database Frontier Life: borderlands,
settlement & colonial encounters.
This collection has been digitized.
Digital copies of this material are intended to support research, teaching, and private study. This work may be used without
prior permission. The original manuscripts for this collection are held by Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
San Diego (Calif.) -- Pictorial works
Businessmen -- California -- San Diego -- Correspondence
Photographic prints -- 19th century
San Diego (Calif.) -- History
San Diego (Calif.) -- History -- Sources
San Diego (Calif.) -- History -- Pictorial works
Daguerreotypes