years of the war, he served as a captain of light infantry under Alexander Hamilton at the Battle of Yorktown. After the war, Morris returned to South Farms, where he cared for his ailing parents. Concerned for the education and moral welfare of the community's youth, he began sharing his library with, and teaching, both boys and girls. Fearing that the girls would grow to be too independent, some locals tried to censure him. His alleged transgressions included permitting students to dance at the close of lessons, treating female students too familiarly, and allowing them to pursue an academic course of study in the first place. The controversy led to a public hearing in which Morris prevailed. In 1803, he opened an academy in a new school building. The Morris Academy was one of the new nation's first coeducational secondary schools, "instructing youths…in the higher branches of literature and the sciences together with the Christian precepts of morality and virtue." During the years in which it existed, students came from 63 Connecticut towns, 15 states and 10 countries including Argentina, France, Germany, Spain and the West Indies. Among them were the abolitionist John Brown; William and Henry Ward Beecher, brothers of Harriet Beecher Stowe; the native Hawaiian Henry Obookiah, who was a symbol of the American Foreign Mission movement, and Samuel Mills, its "father;" a governor and a lieutenant governor of Connecticut and four congressmen. Morris died in 1820, but the academy continued for another 68 years, having educated more than 1,200 young men and women by the time it closed. By 1810, when families were still largely self-sufficient, South Farms farmers cultivated wheat, rye, corn and oats. Women spun flax for linen. Sheep and cattle produced wool and milk, respectively, while oxen provided power for field labor. Water mills turned out grist and lumber, as well as seed for products such as linseed oil. Scattered throughout the area were several small stores, smithies, cider mills and other small businesses. Although its location was rural, South Farms in the early 1800s had connections to the outside world not only because of the academy's relatively diverse student body but also because it was part of an active transportation network. At the time, the area had two centers. One at the east end (now East Morris) was at a four corners on the Straitsville toll road (today Straits Turnpike/Route 63), which connected