Morton, Nathaniel

Morton, Nathaniel an American writer on ecclesiastical history, and one of the Plymouth colonists, was born in England in 1612, and came to this country with his father in 1623. In 1645 he was made secretary of the colony, and continued to hold that office until his death, June 28, 1685. He is noted as the author of New England's Memorial, or a brief Relation of the most memorable and remarkable Passages of the Providence of God manifested to the Planters of New England, etc., compiled chiefly from the MSS. of his uncle, William Bradford, and the journals of Edward Winslow, and including the period from 1620-1646 (Cambridge, 1669, 4to; 2d ed. Boston, 1721, 12mo; 3d ed. Newport, 1772; 5th ed., with notes by Judge Davis, 1826; 6th ed., with notes by the Congregational Board, 1855, 8vo). He also wrote in 1680 a brief Eccles. Hist. of the Plymouth Church, in its records, preserved in Ebenezer Hazard's Historical Collections. See Chancellor Kent, Course of English Reading (1853), page 15; North Amer. Rev. 46:481 sq.; Winthrop, New England (1853), 1:94; Bacon, Genesis of the New England Churches (1875), pages 199, 475.