314 Quince St
Salt Lake City, UT, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Richard Morris House

Statement of Significance:

The Richard Morris house is significant as one of the oldest, relatively intact residences in Salt Lake City. The two story central hall house exhibits characteristics of the vernacular tradition in its materials and symmetry of plan and elevation. The outside porch probably indicates an attempt to update the home acording to Victorian taste. The home reflects the Federal/Georgian tradition brought west from New England, with adobe construction adapted to a traditinal form. A fine example of early domestic architecture in Utah, the Morris house typifies a substantial house/type subsequently replaced by the asymmetrical, more ornamented homes of time Victorian period. It was the residence of Richard Vaughn Morris, government official and businessman, for whom it was built no later than 1866.
Richard and Vaughen Morris was born September 23, 1830, in Abergele, Denbigshire, North Wales, to John and Barbara Morris. A frail child, he was sent at thirteen to England and was apprenticed to a lawyer. In 1847 he was baptized into the LDS Church by his brother Elias. The following year he left Liverpool to become secretary to the head of that church in Wales and in 1855 emigrated to Utah.

He served in the Nauvoo Legion Cavalry in two Indian Wars and the Morrisite War, attaining the rank of lieutenant. He was assistant federal assessor and collector of internal revenue under General A. L. Chetlain, secretary to Congressional Delegate William H. Hooper in 1870, secretary of the Deseret Telegraph Company, President of the Utah Soap Factory, and auditor of the Utah Central Railroad. From 1873 to 1875 he filled a mission to England. He served as President of the Birmingham Conference and returned with 300
converts.

Morris first married Hannah Phillips by whom he had three sons. After her death he married Lavinia Robins who emigrated with him. On May 16, 1868 he took another wife, Harriet Cecilia Jones, by whom he had eight children. They adopted an Indian child as well. Harriet, widowed when Morris died March 12, 1882, remarried and built the house next south at 132-134 W 300 N.
In 1886 the house passed from Morris' estate to his widow, Hattie Morris. In 1899 Hattie Morris Pickett sold the house to William F. Edward, who resold it the same year to Walter M. Heath. In 1901 Delia Heath Thatcher bought it and sold it back to Heath the following year. In 1906 Eva and Walter M. Heath sold the house to Jessie E. Graham. Jessie E. Graham Wise and George L. Wise sold it to W.P. Hemphill and J.W. Collins. They sold it the same year to John M. and Caroline Anderson who sold it in 1917 to Fidelity Investment Co.


Fidelity lost it in a sheriff's sale in 1926 to Tracy Loan and Trust. Tracy sold it in 1937 to John and Concha Adams. Adams sold it to Leslie D and Cora M. Spilsbury in 1941. The Spilsbury's sold it to Harlon W. and Geraldine M. Clark in 1978. They sold it the same year to LaMar T. and Karen H. Merril, Jr. The present owner, Brent D. Christensen, bought the house in 1978.