Background
Morris Cooper Foote was born September 16, 1843, at Madison Barracks, Sackett’s Harbor, New York, to Lyman and Mary M. (Cooper)
Foote. His great-grandfather was William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown, New York, and his maternal great-grandfather
was Jacob Morris, who served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, whose father was Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration
of Independence. Foote was also the great-nephew of novelist James Fenimore Cooper. After his father died during the Mexican
War in 1846 his mother moved to Cooperstown with her children. Foote attended school here for a time, later going to Plattsburg
and to a Commercial College in Syracuse.