page_title: Oliver P. Morton
section_title: Family and background
hierarchical_section_title: Oliver P. Morton / Early life / Family and background
caption_attribution_description: English: Front of the Oliver P. Morton House, located at 319 W. Main Street (U.S. Route 40) in Centerville, Indiana, United States. Built in 1848, it was the home of Oliver P. Morton, Governor of Indiana during the Civil War, and today it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
context_page_description: Oliver Hazard Perry Throck Morton, commonly known as Oliver P. Morton, was a U.S. Republican Party politician from Indiana. He served as the 14th Governor of Indiana during the American Civil War, and was a stalwart ally of President Abraham Lincoln. During the war, Morton thwarted and neutralized the Democratic-controlled Indiana General Assembly. He exceeded his constitutional authority by calling out the militia without approval, and during the period of legislative suppression he privately financed the state government through unapproved federal and private loans. He was criticized for arresting and detaining political enemies and suspected southern sympathizers. As one of President Lincoln's "war governors", Morton made significant contributions to the war effort, more than any other man in the state, and earned the lifelong gratitude of former Union soldiers for his support.
  During his second term as governor, and after being partially paralyzed by a stroke, he was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate. He was a leader among the Radical Republicans of the Reconstruction era, and supported numerous bills designed to reform the former Southern Confederacy.
context_section_description: Morton was an Indiana native born in Wayne County near the small settlement of Salisbury on August 4, 1823, to James Throck and Sarah Miller Morton. His grandfather had shortened the family's surname, Throckmorton, to Morton, but the males in the family carried Throck as a middle name. He was named for Oliver Hazard Perry, the victorious Commodore in the Battle of Lake Erie. Morton disliked his name from an early age, and before beginning his political career he shortened it to Oliver Perry Morton, dropping the middle names of Hazard and Throck. His mother died when he was three, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents. He spent most of his young life living with them in Ohio.
  Morton returned to eastern Indiana as a young man, and joined his family at Centerville. Leaving school at the age of fifteen, Morton briefly worked as an apothecary's clerk, but left after a dispute with the proprietor and apprenticed as a hat maker. After four years in the hat-making business he became dissatisfied and quit to enroll at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he studied for two years and was initiated into Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He then briefly attended Cincinnati College to continue his law studies. In 1845 he returned to Centerville and was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1846. Morton formed a law practice with Judge Newman and became a successful and moderately wealthy attorney. Morton married Lucinda Burbank in 1845. The couple had five children, but only two survived infancy.
caption: Morton's house in Centerville
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