William A. Morse (1863-1925) was born and died in Boston, Massachusetts. He was raised in Tisbury, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vineyard, and maintained a residence there throughout his lifetime. He attended Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine, and Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then followed his father into the lobster and codfishing trade in Nomans Land, Massachusetts. Morse began studying law by bringing copies of legal texts aboard his boats and eventually earned enough from fishing and lobstering to put himself through Boston University Law School. He was admitted to the Suffolk County bar in 1886 and was also a member of the bar of the federal courts and of the United States Supreme Court.
He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1893 and the Massachusetts Senate from 1895 to 1898. Morse was also a Mason and a member of the Boston Lodge of Elks and the Boston Press Club. He married Florence B. Morse (b. Daggett) in Tisbury in 1883. She died in 1916, and in 1918 he married Mary E. Morse (b. Denon) in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Morse was one of the attorneys who successfully represented Mary Baker Eddy in a libel suit brought by Josephine Curtis Woodbury in 1899. Morse also drafted Eddy's will and was retained as her counsel in other legal matters, including the Next Friends Suit of 1907, through the remainder of her lifetime.
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William A. Morse (1863-1925) was born and died in Boston, Massachusetts. He was raised in Tisbury, Massachusetts, on Martha's Vineyard, and maintained a residence there throughout his lifetime. He attended Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine, and Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then followed his father into the lobster and codfishing trade in Nomans Land, Massachusetts. Morse began studying law by bringing copies of legal texts aboard his boats and eventually earned enough from fishing and lobstering to put himself through Boston University Law School. He was admitted to the Suffolk County bar in 1886 and was also a member of the bar of the federal courts and of the United States Supreme Court.
He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1893 and the Massachusetts Senate from 1895 to 1898. Morse was also a Mason and a member of the Boston Lodge of Elks and the Boston Press Club. He married Florence B. Morse (b. Daggett) in Tisbury in 1883. She died in 1916, and in 1918 he married Mary E. Morse (b. Denon) in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Morse was one of the attorneys who successfully represented Mary Baker Eddy in a libel suit brought by Josephine Curtis Woodbury in 1899. Morse also drafted Eddy's will and was retained as her counsel in other legal matters, including the Next Friends Suit of 1907, through the remainder of her lifetime.
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