Ephraim W. Morse Papers, 1839-1884 (MSS 79)

Extent: 2 Linear feet (5 archives boxes and 2 oversize folders)

View OnlineThis collection has been digitized.

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.

[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,

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.

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.

Container List

FINANCIAL RECORDS

Scope and Content of Series

Series 1) FINANCIAL RECORDS: Contains business records from Morse's mercantile store in Old Town, San Diego, between 1861 and 1869, and his general entrepreneurial activities in New Town between February 1869 and 1884.

Morse kept two types of business records for his Old Town store. He recorded each transaction serially in a storebook each day and also kept an account book for individuals with running credits and debits. For each transaction in the storebook, Morse assigned a unique number to each individual based upon the page number assigned in one of the several account books. The account books summarize transactions by person. Missing from the storebooks for Old Town are records from November 1, 1863 to December 31, 1865. Missing from the account books are records from 1861 to 1864. Morse's activities in New Town, beginning in February 1869, are also represented by storebooks, February 6, 1869 to June 30, 1879, and account books, 1869-1884.

Box 1 Folder 1
Box 1 Folder 2
Box 1 Folder 3
Box 2 Folder 1
Box 2 Folder 2
Box 2 Folder 3
Box 2 Folder 4
Box 3 Folder 1
Box 3 Folder 2
Box 3 Folder 3
Box 3 Folder 4

SCRAPBOOKS

Scope and Content of Series

Series 2) SCRAPBOOKS: Contains a scrapbook of photographs of San Diego taken circa 1874 and a collection of pressed ferns from the southern California region. Some of the photographs are probably duplicates from the production of the pamphlet entitled Information relative to the City of San Diego, California. Illustrated with twenty-two photographic views, containing, also a Business Directory of the city (1874). Morse sat on the production committee of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce for this publication. Included in the collection of images are commercial buildings in New Town, houses of prominent local citizens, and landscapes in the county. Also included is a scrapbook of pressed ferns and another scrapbook of pressed seaweed.

Box 4 Folder 1

Includes photographs of San Diego, newspaper clippings, a short extract of prose entitled "Among the Wild Flowers of San Diego", and several pressings of ferns from the southern California region.

Oversize FB-519-01
Oversize FB-519-02

PHOTOGRAPHS

Scope and Content of Series

Series 3) PHOTOGRAPHS: Examples of cased ambrotype and daguerreotype portraits of unidentified subjects.

Box 4 Folder 2

Ambrotype photograph.

Box 4 Folder 3

Daguerreotype photograph.

Box 4 Folder 3

Daguerreotype photograph.

Box 4 Folder 4

Daguerreotype photograph.

Box 4 Folder 4
Portrait of woman holding flowers, ca. 1839-1869

Daguerreotype photograph.

Box 5 Folder 1

Daguerreotype photograph.

Box 5 Folder 1
Portrait of woman , ca. 1839-1869

Daguerreotype photograph.

Box 5 Folder 2

Daguerreotype photograph.

CORRESPONDENCE

Scope and Content of Series

Series 4) CORRESPONDENCE: Two folders of letters. In the John Capron materials is a letter from Charles White which discusses the election of Sheriff McCoy. The E.W. Morse folder contains miscellaneous notes, letters from insurance companies, and materials related to the Masonic Building Association.

Box 5 Folder 3

Correspondence topics range from health of loved ones, to promotion of San Diego as a place to live and visit. Includes a letter from Charles White which discussing the election of Sheriff McCoy. Some text obscured by plant pressings.

Box 5 Folder 4

Includes correspondence with the New Zealand insurance company regarding his employment, miscellaneous notes, and materials related to the Masonic Building Association.