Young-Morrison House
(ca. 1890)
The Young-Morrison House has long ties with one of Mecklenburg County’s most historically significant families, the Robert Hall and Mary Graham Morrison family.
224 West 10th St, Charlotte, NC 28202
Mrs. Ida L. Young (1850-1926), wife of bookkeeper and mail agent Joseph H. Young (1850-1915), purchased the West 10th Street property in 1885 for $550. Documentary evidence suggests the Youngs constructed the extant Queen Anne style house within five years of that purchase. In 1906, they sold the house to Mrs. Jennie D. Morrison (1847-1935) for $7,000. Mrs. Morrison was the widow of Joseph Graham Morrison (1842-1906), a son of Davidson College cofounder and first president Rev. Dr. Robert Hall Morrison. Mrs. Morrison and five of the couple’s children moved to the West 10th Street house from Cottage Home, the Morrisons’ ancestral home near Lincolnton, soon after Mr. Morrison’s death in 1906. Members of the Morrison family owned the property until 1949. The house has since served as a private residence, a restaurant, and offices for an architectural design firm.
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The Morrison family factored prominently in Mecklenburg County history. Robert Hall Morrison (1789-1889) served as a licensed Presbyterian minister for sixty-five years, with Charlotte’s Providence Presbyterian Church as one of his first appointments. In 1822, he relocated to Fayetteville, where he served a church and established the North Carolina Telegram, the South’s first religious gazette. Morrison married Mary Graham (1801-1864) of Lincolnton in 1824. The couple had twelve children. The family returned to Charlotte in 1827 where Robert served Sugaw Creek Presbyterian Church until he accepted the presidency of Davidson College in 1836.
Robert and Mary’s daughter Harriet Abigail Morrison Irwin (1828-1897) was the first woman, licensed or unlicensed, to practice architecture in North Carolina. She was also the first woman in the United States to receive a U.S. patent for an architectural innovation – U.S. Patent No. 94,116, issued August 24, 1869, for a hexagonal-shaped house. Harriet’s husband James P. Irwin (1820-1903) used the wealth he accumulated as a partner with the Mobile, Alabama, cotton firm Patrick, Irwin & Company to purchase several downtown Charlotte properties. He also assisted his brother-in-law Daniel Harvey Hill (1821-1889) with the publication of a monthly journal The Land We Love.
Robert and Mary’s son Joseph Graham Morrison served on General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson’s staff during the Civil War and was with Jackson when the latter was fatally wounded. General Jackson (1824-1863) was married to Joseph’s sister Anna. In addition to General Jackson, the Morrison family included, either by birth or marriage: Daniel Harvey Hill, a lieutenant general in the Civil War and later President of the University of Arkansas; Alphonso Calhoun Avery (1835-1913), a Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court following service as a colonel in the Civil War; Dr. Paul Brandon Barringer (1857-1941), president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and founder of the Medical School of the University of Virginia; and D. H. Hill, Jr. (1859-1924), president of North Carolina State College.