HERBERT ELLIS MOREY (1848-1925)

Herbert Ellis Morey (1848-1925), was born April 21, 1848 to the most affluent family at “Morey House,” Malden, Massachusetts. His parents were very active abolitionists working with William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Philips, and they used their home as one of the stations of the Underground Railroad affording slaves safe passage to Canada. Many slaves were secreted from the Morey home to that of Harriet Beecher Stowe at Andover. His maternal grandfather, Timothy Bailey was the president of Malden Bank.

He graduated Malden High School in 1866. He then graduated from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1872. He was the first baseball captain of the first baseball team ever at Massachusetts Agricultural College. Later on in life his son David Beale Morey will be a famous baseball player at Dartmouth College, at Worcester for the New England League and Middlebury. If Morey had been born a a few years earlier he might have been one of the first professional baseball players in the National League rather than a businessman and coin dealer.

He was employed at Morey, Smith & Co., merchants, at Boston, 1872-1881.

On August 11, 1874 he married Ellen "Nellie" A. Beale (1850-1931), an accomplished musician and music composer and neighbor at Malden, Massachusetts, at the Congregational Church at Orfordville, New Hampshire. Years after their marriage his wife became a cause célèbre in music and was known as Mme. Beale-Morey. She gave recital tours throughout Europe for several years.

In 1881 he became a member of the firm at Morey, Smith & Co. They had one son and two daughters. His residences : 49 Haverhill Street, Boston, Massachusetts, and 34 Hillside Avenue, Malden. Business : Room 1, 31 Exchange Street, Boston, Massachusetts, formerly of Malden, Massachusetts. Moved to 41 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts. He styled himself as a numismatist and philatelist dealing in ancient Roman, foreign and American coins, medals, paper money and postage stamps. At one time he was offered the position of the curator of the U. S. Mint at Philadelphia but refused it due to increasing deafness and not willing to leave his home state.

He became a collector as a schoolboy of about eight or nine circa 1857, though his obituary claims since the age of 10, i.e., 1858. Regardless, about thirty-two years later he began as a part-time coin and stamp dealer in 1889. He was married and worked as a bookkeeper until 1890 when he became a full-time coin dealer issuing his first fixed price catalogue serving also as his numismatic auction mail bids catalogue and published ads in The Numismatist. He applied for membership to the ANA in 1891 and is ANA charter member No. 61.

In 1905 he held 12 mail bid coin auction sales, with May having two sales, since there was no sale in February, making that year his fourth largest number of mail bid sales held in a single year in his career.

He died on Sunday evening on March 22, 1925 at his home. He never missed a National League baseball game held at Boston. Oddly enough the June 1925 issue of The Numismatist listed Herbert E. Morey as an advertised coin dealer three months after his demise.

To read the complete article, see:
MOREY, HERBERT ELLIS (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/morey-herbert-ellis)

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