He was the son of a founding father of the United States, Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) and his wife, Ann Cary Randolph (1774–1837), nicknamed "Nancy".

He wasn't as active in politics as his famous father, but he was a founder of the Republican Party and attended its opening convention in 1854.

[4] After his death on August 20, 1888, in Bartow-on-the-Sound, Pelham, New York, Morris was buried at St. Ann's Episcopal Church in the Bronx.

[5] His grandson, Gouverneur Morris IV (1876–1953), was an author of pulp novels and short stories during the early twentieth century.

[6] His granddaughter, Henrietta Fairfax Morris, married Stephen Bonsal (1865–1951) a journalist and war correspondent who won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for History.