was appointed as United States Secretary of Agriculture by President Cleveland (1893–1897). He is credited with helping change that department into a coordinated service to farmers, and he supported Cleveland in setting up national forest reservations. In 1897, Morton planned and began to edit the multi-volume Illustrated History of Nebraska. He also began publishing a weekly periodical, The Conservative. Morton died on April 27, 1902 in Lake Forest, Illinois, where he was seeking medical treatment; his wife, Caroline, had died two decades earlier, in June 1881. The Morton home and estate in Nebraska City is now a state park, the Arbor Lodge State Historical Park and Arboretum. In 1937, the state of Nebraska donated a bronze statue of Morton to the National Statuary Hall Collection at the United States Capitol. Morton is a member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame. The J. Sterling Morton Beltway, a highway near Nebraska City, Nebraska, which is made up of U.S. Route 75 and Nebraska Highway 2, is named for him. J. Sterling Morton Magnet Middle School in Omaha, Nebraska, also bears his name, as do Morton College (a community college) and J. Sterling Morton High School District 201 in Berwyn and Cicero, Illinois. His son Joy Morton was the founder of the Morton Salt Company, Chicago, Illinois. The son also created The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois in 1922. Today, Joy Morton's original Thornhill Estate, which he acquired in 1910, has been transformed into a living history museum of over 4,000 different types of trees, shrubs, and other woody plants. His son, Paul Morton, was the Vice President of the Santa Fe Railroad and President of the Equitable Life Insurance Company, and although J. Sterling was a Bourbon Democrat (i.e. conservative Democrat), Paul served as Secretary of the Navy under Teddy Roosevelt from 1904 to 1905 as a Progressive Republican. Notes References Beaty, Sandy (1998). Champion of Arbor Day: J. Sterling Morton. Kansas City, Missouri: Acorn Books. Olson, James C. (1942). J. Sterling Morton. Lincoln, Nebraska: Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation. External links The Arbor Day Foundation at www.arborday.org at the Nebraska State Historical Society |- |- |- |- |- 1832 births 1902 deaths American conservationists Members of the Nebraska Territorial Legislature 19th-century American politicians Governors of Nebraska Territory Politicians from Detroit People from Monroe, Michigan University of Michigan alumni People from Nebraska City, Nebraska People from Adams, New York United States Secretaries