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Nelson Morris: From Stockyard Hand to Founder of Morris & Company

A German-born boy who worked a Chicago stockyard became a cattle trader and then a packer with 100 branches.

Who Was Nelson Morris?

Nelson Morris was born Moritz Beisinger on January 21, 1838, in Hechingen, in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, to a Jewish family that raised cattle. He died on August 27, 1907, in Chicago. The Wikipedia biography of Morris is the source for these dates and for the outline that follows.

He is remembered as the founder of Morris & Company, one of Chicago's three main meatpacking firms alongside Armour & Company and Swift & Company. His own path started with livestock, which is why a cattle hall of fame belongs to him as much as a business history does.

Cattle Knowledge Brought From Germany

Family property was confiscated during the German revolutions of 1848 and 1849, and the boy was sent to live with an uncle in New England. He took the name Nelson, often shortened to Nels, in the United States.

What traveled with him was practical knowledge. The biography says he drew on cattle skills learned from his father in southern Germany, and that those skills made him a successful cattle trader once he reached Chicago.

Arriving in Chicago in 1853

At 15 he left his uncle and worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania, on a canal boat and on a lake ship before reaching Chicago in 1853, where he found work at a stockyard. The sequence is a plain list of manual jobs, and none of it was handed to him.

Stockyard work taught him how animals were bought, weighed and sold. That grounding in the trade's front end is the reason his later packing business started from cattle rather than from a butcher's counter.

Civil War Contracts and a Slaughterhouse

Morris bought a slaughterhouse and butcher shop, and during the Civil War he built a profitable relationship with the Union Army. This is a pattern shared with other Chicago packers of the period, who found the army a large and dependable customer.

From that base he grew from trader into packer, owning the animals, the killing floor and the product.

The Key to Morris's Success

The documented record points to cattle judgment first, capital second. He understood stock before he understood packing, and he positioned himself among the banks that served the stockyards.

For more on how the yards worked, see a farm.FM story on the Chicago stockyards, and the ranching pages at farm.FM give the cattle side of the story.

  • He started as a stockyard worker and learned cattle trading from the ground up.
  • He used skills his father taught him in southern Germany.
  • He secured Union Army business during the Civil War.
  • He became a director of the First National Bank of Chicago in 1872 and of the Drovers Bank, which served the stockyards.
  • Cost: his family lost its property in Germany, and his rise came through years of manual labor.

How Big Did Morris & Company Get?

By the 1880s the company had more than 60 buildings in Chicago and employed 3,700 people. The biography gives daily slaughter of about 5,000 cattle, 10,000 pigs, 6,000 sheep and 1,000 calves. Those are the figures as reported there.

At his death, company sales reached $100 million, and the firm had 100 branches across the country. Few cattle buyers in the nation operated at that scale.

Family and Legacy

Morris married Sarah Vogel in 1863. They had five children, including the diplomat Ira Nelson Morris and Edward Morris, who married Helen Swift, a daughter of Gustavus Swift, linking two packing families.

The company name outlasted its founder, and the surviving record of a boy from Hechingen who ended up a Chicago banker's board member remains one of the clearer examples of how the stockyard trades created large fortunes.

Readers who want the primary outline can return to the Morris biography, and the entry on his banking roles shows how the packer also sat on the boards of banks that served the yards.

Timeline

  1. 1838Born Moritz Beisinger in Hechingen
  2. 1848Family property confiscated during the German revolutions
  3. 1853Reaches Chicago and works at a stockyard
  4. 1863Marries Sarah Vogel
  5. 1860sBuilds Union Army business during the Civil War
  6. 1872Becomes first Jewish director of First National Bank of Chicago
  7. 1880sCompany has over 60 Chicago buildings and 3,700 workers
  8. 1907Dies in Chicago; sales reach $100 million

Frequently asked questions

Who was Nelson Morris?

Nelson Morris was a German-born Chicago cattle trader who founded Morris & Company, one of the city's three main meatpacking firms, beside Armour and Swift.

How did Nelson Morris start out?

He arrived in Chicago in 1853 at age 15 and worked at a stockyard. His father had taught him cattle skills in Germany, and he became a trader before buying a slaughterhouse.

How large was Morris & Company?

By the 1880s it had over 60 Chicago buildings and 3,700 employees. At his death, sales reached $100 million with 100 branches, according to the biography.

Was Nelson Morris related to the Swifts?

His son Edward Morris married Helen Swift, a daughter of Gustavus Swift, which connected two of Chicago's packing families.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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