8th Quartermaster General

Morgan Lewis, soldier, jurist, governor of New York, was the second son of Francis Lewis and Elizabeth Annesley, of New York. His early schooling was at home and in Elizabethtown, N.J., and he graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1773. He was studying law at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution. After a summer of volunteer service in 1775 at Cambridge, Mass., and in New York, he was in the winter and spring of 1776, major in the 2nd Regiment of the "New York Line". From June 1776 till the end of the war he was deputy quartermaster general for the New York Department and was chief of staff with Gates at Ticonderoga and at Saratoga. Resuming his legal studies at the close of the war he was admitted to the bar, and he also took his first steps in politics by successfully running for the Assembly in 1789-90 and in 1792.

He was Attorney General of New York from November 1791 to Dec. 24, 1792, and third justice of the supreme court of New York from the latter date to Oct.28, 1801, when he was promoted to the chief justiceship.

In 1804 he became governor of New York. During the War of 1812 he was Quartermaster General and in 1813 was promoted to Brigadier General in service on the Niagara Frontier. In 1814 he assumed command of the region above New York City.

He was on of the founders of New York University. He died in his ninetieth year in New York City.