The House That Seeds Built

Charles Copeland Morse and the Ferry-Morse Seed Company

Sep 14, 2009 Linda Gentile

Charles Copeland Morse came to California for gold, but helped found the Ferry-Morse Seed Company. The profits helped him buy his wife the home of her dreams.

In Santa Clara, towering over a quiet urban street, is the Charles Copeland Morse home. This magnificent Queen Anne Victorian structure, now used as a law office, has rickety wooden stairs, fancy scalloped trim and little stained glass windows to brighten its turrets. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

While not generally open to the public, each year Santa Clara holds a historic house tour to raise funds for the historical society. The event sometimes includes this National Historic Site as a refreshment stop, allowing the curious to investigate polished wood, softly glowing chandeliers and the distinctive musk of age.

Outside, a plaque remarks that this, the Charles Copeland Morse house, is California historic landmark number 904. The marker is placed in a bed of colorful flowers, and for good reason. Charles Morse was the founder of a seed company that is still going strong today.

Charles Copeland Morse's Arrival in California

Charles Copeland Morse was born in Thomaston, Maine in 1842 and in 1859 came to California as a gold prospector. This search was not to be, and within three years he had moved to Santa Clara.

In those days, Santa Clara was still a small agricultural town, far from the Silicon Valley conurbation that would be manufactured roughly a century later. Its rich land was perfect for farming.

Morse tried his hand at various non-mining jobs (at one stage he was a painter.) Six years later, Morse married Maria Josephine Victoria Langford and they had five children.

Charles Copeland Morse and the Ferry-Morse Seed Company

According to Edward James Wickson's 1817 book The California Vegetables in Garden and Field , by 1875 seed-grower R.W. Wilson had already started experimenting with seed in California and produced the first commercially grown crop for the Pacific Coast. Those three acres of Ferry's Prizehead Lettuce started a seed empire.

In 1877, Morse pooled resources with A.L. Kellogg, a minster, and they acquired Wickson's business, incorporating in 1884. C.C. Morse & Co. quickly became the leading producer of flower and vegetable seed on the West Coast. In 1930, it would merge with the well-established D.M. Ferry Company to form today's Ferry-Morse, now owned by Jiffy of the Americas.

In 1892 Charles built Maria her dream house, which a newspaper dubbed "the house that seeds built." It cannot fail to be seen at 981 Fremont Street.

Sources

• National Park Service
• Ferry-Morse Seed Company (www.ferry-morse.com)
• Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World; H.S. Foote, Editor; 1888

The copyright of the article The House That Seeds Built in Historical Travel is owned by Linda Gentile. Permission to republish The House That Seeds Built in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Charles Copeland Morse Residence

What do you think about this article?

---

NOTE: Because you are not a Suite101 member, your comment will be moderated before it is viewable.

post your comment

What is 4+1?