Roger Morris (British Army officer)

Transferred to the 35th Regiment of Foot in 1758, Morris served in Fort Frederick in Nova Scotia; he led the Cape Sable Campaign against the Acadians.

[5] In May 1760, Morris was promoted to lieutenant-colonel of the 47th Regiment of Foot shortly after the Battle of Sainte-Foy, and participated in General Jeffery Amherst's assault and capture of Montreal on 8 September 1760 ending French rule in North America.

Morris retired from the British army in 1764 and settled in New York City on the southeast corner of Whitehall and Stone streets with his American wife, Mary Philipse, nicknamed Charming Polly,[1] whom he had married in 1758.

[2] Situated on Coogan's Bluff, its vista included lower Manhattan, the Hudson and its Palisades, the Bronx, Westchester, the Long Island Sound and the Harlem River.

It later served as the headquarters of British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton, and the Hessian commander Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen.

[9][11] In 1779, estates of 58 prominent Loyalists, including the Morris home and Mary's share of the Philipse Patent, were confiscated by the Commissioners of Forfeiture according to the Attainder Act of 1779 passed by the Third Session of the New York Legislature on 22 October 1779.

[note 2] As many citizens of New York, however, still harbored strong resentment against the loyalists, the Provincial Congress effectively nullified that article of the Treaty of Paris of 1783 by an act of 12 May 1784.

[16] However, a gambit by millionaire John Jacob Astor provided something of a windfall for the Philipse-Morris heirs, but failed to bring him its desired long term rental income.