Morris Birkbeck

Morris Birkbeck (1764—1825) was a farmer and writer from Settle, Yorkshire. He was the son of Morris Birkbeck (1734—1816), a Quaker minister, and Hannah, née Bradford. His mother would die soon after childbirth. In 1794 he married Prudence Bush, the daughter of a prominent Quaker, with whom he had seven children. Birkbeck was educated at the Friends' school in Tottenham from 1772 to 1776, after which his father apprenticed him to a sheep farmer. By 1792 he was able to lease a sizable farm of his own near Wanborough, where he would establish himself as a successful commercial farmer. In 1811 Birkbeck would meet Richard Flower who would pass to him his beliefs in Unitary Radicalism and Romantic era literature. A subsequent trip to France with Flower’s son would result in Birkbeck writing a memoir, Notes on a Journey through France (1814). After his father’s death in 1816, he would immigrate to Virginia with four of his children. In 1817, because of his hatred for slavery, would move north to the Illinois territory, buying 1500 acres upon his arrival. The following year he would publish the account of his journey in Notes of a Journey from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois and Letters from Illinois in order to encourage others to venture out to the prairie. Birkbeck had great plans for cultivating a morally upright, agricultural community; however, his visions would never come to fruition.  He did help turn the vote against calling a special convention to amend its constitution of 1818 to legalize slavery by writing newspaper articles under the name Jonathan Freeman. Retuning home from Indiana in 1825, Birkbeck would drown attempting to swim his horse across a river. He was buried in New Harmony soon after.