Artist: James Reeve Stuart (1834–1915), painted 1908 and pictured here
Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876–1936)
Nelson Morris
MORRIS, NELSON (1838–1907), inducted 1908
Two different portraits of Nelson Morris moved from Chicago to Louisville:
Nelson Morris was born in Hechingen, Germany, and immigrated to America with his family in 1851. He moved to Chicago three years later and began working for Saddle & Sirloin inductee John B. Sherman. In 1859, he established the meatpacking business that would become Nelson Morris & Company—one of the foundational businesses at Union Stock Yards when it opened in 1865. During the Civil War, he supplied beef to the Union Army. By 1873, company sales were $11 million, and by the turn of the century, Nelson Morris & Company had almost 100 branches across the United States, with sales approaching $100 million. Nelson Morris owned Fairbank Canning Company and was a director of several banks that supported the industry. He also pioneered the shipping of dressed beef from Chicago to the East Coast and Europe and was an early importer of Polled Angus cattle to his ranches in Texas and the Dakotas. Nelson Morris’s chief philanthropic interest was medical research.
Two portraits of Nelson Morris survive in the Saddle & Sirloin Collection. The earlier one, by the collection’s first artist, James Stuart, may not have been the original induction portrait, since it differs from the one published in Wentworth’s 1920 catalogue. Had this Stuart painting been in the Saddle & Sirloin Club in 1934, it would have been destroyed in the fire. The Grafton painting does resemble the hatless version in the 1920 catalogue, so it was likely the official post-fire replacement. There are no records to indicate how or when the 1908 portrait was added to the gallery.
Source: Saddle & Sirloin Guidebook 2026, p. 144