Morley was born in 1876 at Cimarron in Colfax County, New Mexico. His parents were William Raymond Morley, Sr. (1846–1883), and Ada (McPherson) Morley (1852–1917). His father was the chief engineer for the Santa Fe Railroad and later edited The Cimarron News and managed the Maxwell land grant in Cimarron. Morley's father was killed in 1883 from an accidental shooting in Mexico. Morley was six years old at the time of his father's death. His father left extensive land holdings in the Datil Mountains near Datil, New Mexico. After his father's death, his mother remarried, and moved with her three young children (one boy and two girls) and her new husband, Floyd Jarrett, to the Datil Mountains. Jarrett abandoned the family in approximately 1889, and Morley's mother raised her children in a log