Richard Cary Morse was born on September 19, 1841, in Hudson, Columbia County, New York.

He was an editor, author, and YMCA secretary. He graduated from Andover Theological Academy in 1858 and from Yale College in 1862. He then spent two years in Auburn, New York as a private tutor, followed by two years of study at the Princeton and Union Theological Seminaries, receiving degrees from both institutions in 1867. After the ownership of the New York Observer had passed from the elder Morse brothers to Richard Cary Morse's son, Sidney Edwards Morse, Richard was offered an assistant editorship. He decided that religious journalism would serve as a fit beginning his ministerial career. In 1869, he was asked to take a new position as YMCA secretary and editor, taking charge of a quarterly magazine. This began a 47-year career which culminated in the position of the General Secretary of the International Committee of YMCA. In this capacity, Morse traveled the world to help extend YMCA influence and prepared works on the organization's history. Though ordained in 1869, Richard Morse never served as a minister. The YMCA became his calling and the central activity of his life. He published "History of the North American Young Men's Christian Associations" (1913) and his autobiography "My Life with Young Men, Fifty Years in the Young Men's Christian Association" (1918).

In 1883, he married Jane “Jennie” Elizabeth Van Cott (1851–1917). He died on December 25, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York.