Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball, 1810-1881, was a descendant of Lewis Morris, general in the Continental Army, member of the Continental Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Meta's father, also called Lewis Morris, married Elizabeth Manigault of South Carolina in 1807. Elizabeth was killed in a storm on Sullivan's Island, S.C., on 22 September 1822. In 1834, Lewis Morris married Aramintha Lowndes, who died in 1843. Through Meta's family, the Grimballs were, therefore, connected to the prominent Manigault and Lowndes families of South Carolina and to the Morris family of New York.
In 1830, Meta married John Berkley Grimball, 1800-1892, of Charleston, S.C. Grimball was the son of John and Eliza Berkley Grimball and a descendant of Paul Grimball (d. 1696). Paul Grimball came to South Carolina from England in 1682 and was secretary and receiver general of the province. The Grimballs were rice planters in Saint Paul's Parish in the Colleton District of South Carolina, but also spent much of the year in Charleston. They had nine children: Elizabeth (1831-1914), who married William Munro (d. 1900) and lived in Unionville, S.C.; Berkley (1833-1899), who studied law; Lewis (1835-1901), a physician who married Clementina Legge; William (d. 1864); John (d. 1922), who attended the United States Naval Academy and married Katie Moore; Arthur (d. 1894); Gabriella (d. 1924); Charlotte; and Harry, who married Helen E. Trenholm, daughter of Edward L. Trenholm, in 1876.
From the guide to the Margaret Ann Meta Morris Grimball Diary, 1860-1866, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)
