While St. Joseph's history goes back to the French missionaries and the explorer LaSalle who built Fort Miami on the bluff in 1679, the other side of the river wasn't settled until 1835. Much of the land where downtown Benton Harbor is today was then a big marsh extending to the river, with wild rice growing high and wild ducks swimming around. It took almost a century of filling with bark, log chips, sand and anything else handy, to build up the ground so that streets and buildings could be put on top of this old marsh. The first white settler on the north side of the St. Joseph River was Eleazar Morton, an educated man whose family went back to the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. In the East, about 1830, Michigan was advertised as the "land of opportunity," and many ambitious men began moving their families westward to become pioneers in this undeveloped country. The Mortons undoubtedly followed the Territorial Road across the state (the same Territorial Road that is in front of the Morton House), because in 1835 the road was opened from Detroit to St. Joseph. The whole trip took five days and it was a bumpy road as it was just a trail back then. When the Morton family arrived, they spent the winter of 1835 in the little village of St. Joseph. They bought some land on the other side of the river and the next year they built a log cabin near where the City Park is now. It took half a day to get from his log cabin to the village of St. Joseph as the Territorial Road wound along the foot of the hills, past where the high school is now, and then you could take the ferry or cross on the old wooden Spinks Bridge. After Eleazar Morton had built his log cabin he soon had to add a loft because travelers on Territorial Road sometimes wanted to stay overnight with the family. In the 1840's, more settlers bought land on this side of the river (land was quite expensive in St. Joseph) and a little village began to grow. The Morton family bought 500 acres of farm land, cleared off the trees, planted crops and also the third peach orchard in the county. In 1849 they built a house on top of their hill overlooking what would become Benton Harbor. Eleazar's son Henry married Josephine Stanley, a teacher from Bainbridge, in 1849. The bride and groom moved into this new home, along with Henry's parents who were then getting old. Henry Morton was one of the founders of Benton Harbor. He used to let travelers, and sometimes Indians, stay overnight at the house. The Indians lived up toward Hartford and used to weave lovely baskets from the willows that grew along the Paw Paw River and they would make the long trip to St. Joseph to sell their baskets. Sometimes Mr. Morton would let the Indians sleep overnight on the little front porch and if it was cold he would loan them a buffalo robe for cover. Sometimes people called the house an "Indian Hotel." It was still hard to get back and forth to St. Joseph to sell crops and ship things on the boarts and to buy what families needed from the stores. Some people were saying that a canal should be dug to connect with the St. Joseph River, so that lake boats could come into this new village and load there. Henry Morton, Sterne Brunson and Charles Hull were convinced that a canal would help the village grow, and the three of them persuaded everybody else living on this side of the river, and acted as a committee to get the needed land, money, timber and workmen. Everyone gave whatever he could. Tyhe committee drew plans for a canal and then went to Chicago to finhd a dredge and operator, The dredge operator lived with the Mortons while the canal was being dug. It was opened in 1862 and windened twice after that. The canal made a lake port of the little village, originally called "Brunson Harbor," sometimes "Bungtown" and then "Benton Harbor," Factories were built, and peaches and other fruit were loaded and shipped from the old Robbins Dock near where the Michigan Works building is now. In 1866 Benton Harbor was incorporated as a village. Henry and Josephine had four children but only one who lived past infancy, James Stanley Morton, who was born in 1850. Stanley Moreton was also a leader in Benton Harbor, working in various businesses, helping in the development of schools and parks, and serving on the Cemetery Board. He is remembered mostly for his steamship business. When he was 30 years old he helped to form the Graham and Morton Transportation Company and eventually became its president, This company operated a number of big boats between here and Chicago and other Lake Michigan ports, One of the first of this company's ships was the Lora, which operated out of Benton Harbor in the 1880's. A picture of it hangs in the Morton House. The Graham and Morton ships carried both passengers and freight and they were very important in the shipment of fruit and other crops until railroads, and then trucks and automobiles, replaced the lake boats in the 1920's. Stanley Morton and his wife, Carrie Heath, had four sons who lived here, but two of them died when they were small and the other two died before their parents. Stanley Morton left his home to the Federation of Women's Clubs to be preserved in memory of the community's pioneers, and to be named after his mother, Josephine Morton. In 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Morton added the big front porch to the house, put in electric lights, and made some other changes inside the house. They had lovely flower gardens in the yard and out in the carraige house, where the chauffeur lived, there was an electric automobile. Across the street on Territorial Road is an impressive white oak tree on a 125' x 125' lot. The lot is next to the home once owned by Clayton Niles and his wife. Mr. Niles was a banker in Benton Harbor and a contemporary of James Stanley Morton. Their daughter, Carolyn Elizabeth Niles Luebke, grew up in the house and lived there with her two children, Magda and William Clayton. Carolyn was a teacher in the Benton harbor public schools. She died in 1977. After her mother's death, Magda researched the tree. It is possible that the tree is the oldest thing in the city. In 1941, a tree surgeon estimated that the tree grew one and a half feet in diameter every one hundred years. The tree measured at 90' tall and 7' in diameter. If the estimate is correct, the tree would be 421 years old. It would have been a seedling in 1580. Anticipating the sale of the house, Magda and her brother William wanted to preserve the tree. They approached the Federation of Women's Clubs as to its willingness to receive the lot and assume the care of the tree. They then, with the help of their attorney, Mr. Small, established a trust fund with the Berrien Community Foundation to cover the future costs of caring for the tree. In a ceremony on January 21, 1980, the tree and lot were presented to Mrs. Leonard Ryan, who was then the President of the Benton Harbor - St. Joseph Federation of Women's Clubs.