Charles Adelbert Morse, Topeka, Kan., was born in Bangor, Me., Jan. 1, 1859. His parents were Charles Browne Morse and Elsie (Emery) Morse. He graduated in 1879 from the University of Maine. In May, 1880, he came West and began work for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad as a member of an engineering party at Burlington, Iowa. From the fall of 1881 to the spring of 1884 he was employed as a division engineer on the Mexican Central railroad, which was then being constructed, and upon the completion of that work in the spring of 1884 he returned to Iowa, where for a year and a half he was a division engineer on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad. In 1885 he came to Kansas and in January, 1886, entered the service of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company as a division engineer and has been in that system's employ since that time, a period of twenty-four years.

Starting as division engineer he successively became resident engineer, assistant engineer, principal assistant engineer, engineer of a grand division, assistant chief engineer, acting chief engineer of Atchison lines, acting chief engineer of coast lines, chief engineer of Atchison, and finally was made chief engineer of the entire system on Nov. 1, 1909.

He is a Mason, a member of the Commercial and Country clubs of Topeka, the Engineers' Club of Chicago, and the American Society of Civil Engineers and American Railway Engineering Association.