When James Morton was born on 3 September 1762, in Plymouth, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, his father, Sylvanus Morton, was 33 and his mother, Mary Stevens (Marshall), was 40. He married Lucy Gorham in 1782. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 2 daughters. He died from August 1835 to December 1838, at the age of 76, and was buried in Milton, Queens, Nova Scotia, Canada.