Thomas Morrell was born in New York City. He moved to Elizabethtown, New Jersey about 1770. He entered the Revolutionary War in 1775 as Leutenant and was quickly promoted to Captain. In July 1776 at the battle at Flatbush he received wounds in the chest and hand and was very nearly captured. After three months and before his wounds had healed, he was commissioned a Major of Col. Ephraim Martin's 4th New Jersey regiment and was in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. He retired in October 1777 due to his wounds, which had never properly healed. After the war, he became a Methodist minister for periods in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston. For the last fifty years of his life, he was minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Elizabethtown. [3]

[1]Date and place derived from Revolutionary War Pension Application.

[2]Date derived from Revolutionary War Pension Application.

[3]Records of the Veterans Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application (National Archives Microfilm Publication M805), Roll 599, File S2872.

[4]Rev. Edwin F. Hatfield, History of Elizabeth, New Jersey (New York: Carlton & Lanahan, 1868), 626.

[5]ibid., 626.

[6]ibid., 626.

[7]ibid., 626.