“December 23, 1819. It is obviously for my interest to hasten to Charleston, as I shall there be immediately at work, and this is the more necessary as there is a fresh gang of adventurers in the brush line gone to Charleston before me.”

A short while after this he received the news of the death of his grandfather, Jedediah Morse, at Woodstock, Connecticut, on December 29, aged ninety-four years.  Mr. Prime says of him:  “He was a strong man in body and mind, an able and upright magistrate, for eighteen years one of the selectmen of the town, twenty-seven years town clerk and treasurer, fifteen years a member of the Colonial and State Legislature, and a prominent, honored, and useful member and officer of the church.”

In January of the year 1820, Dr. Morse, realizing that it would be for the best interests of all concerned to relinquish his pastorate at Charlestown, turned his active brain in another direction, and resolved to carry out a plan which he had long contemplated.  This was to secure from the Government at Washington an appointment as commissioner to the Indians on the borders of the United States of those early days, in order to enquire into their condition with a view to their moral and physical betterment.  To this end he journeyed to Washington and laid his project before the President and the Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun.  He was most courteously entertained by these gentlemen and received the appointment.

In the following spring with his son Richard he travelled through the northwestern frontiers of the United States, and gained much valuable information which he laid before the Government.  As he was a man of delicate constitution, we cannot but admire his indomitable spirit in ever devising new projects of usefulness to his fellow men.  It was impossible for him to remain idle.

But it is not within the scope of this work to follow him on his journeys, although his letters of that period make interesting reading.  While he was in Washington his wife, writing to him on January 27, 1820, says:  “Mrs. Salisbury and Abby drank tea with us day before yesterday.  They told us that Catherine Breese was married to a lieutenant in the army.  This must have been a very sudden thing, and I should suppose very grievous to Arthur.”

Little did the good lady think as she penned these words that, many years afterwards, her beloved eldest son would take as his second wife a daughter of this union.  Why this marriage should have been “grievous” to the father, Arthur Breese, I do not know, unless all army officers were classed among the ungodly by the very pious of those days.  As a matter of fact, Lieutenant, afterwards Captain, Griswold was a most gallant gentleman.

In the mean time Finley Morse had reached Charleston in safety after a tedious journey of many days by stage from Washington, and was busily employed in painting.  On February 4, 1820, he writes to his mother:—­