Background
Morgan, Charles Hill, , New York 1831 1911 Male Engineer Inventor engineer and inventor, son of Hiram and Clarissa Lucina (Rich) Morgan, was born in Rochester, N. Y. , where his father was employed as a mechanic.
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Charles Morgan
Edit ProfileEducation
Charles Morgan enjoyed but a short schooling, for at the age of twelve he was put to work in a factory and at fifteen entered a machine shop in Clinton, Massachussets, as apprentice.
Career
He was descended from Miles Morgan, one of the founders of Springfield, Massachussets, who emigrated from Bristol, England, in 1636.
In 1852 he entered the employ of the Clinton Cotton Mills and also served part time as draftsman for the Lawrence Machine Company.
From 1855 to 1860 he was draftsman for the inventor and carpet manufacturer, Erastus B. Bigelow [q. v. ], during which association he devised a system of designing and constructing cam curves for carpet-looms which proved of great value.
In 1865 he was sent abroad to study rolling-mill processes.
Morgan was greatly assisted in this work by Fred H. Daniels [q. v. ], and they received patents no. 224, 838, no. 224, 840, and no. 224, 942, on Feb. 24, 1880.
His third contribution was that of automatic reels, both of the pouring and the laying type, such as are now in use in wire mills throughout the world.
The successful trial of these was made on Mar. 10, 1886.
This undertaking was likewise successful and today practically all of the continuous wire rod rolling-mills in the world are equipped with this company's products.
[C. G. Washburn, Industrial Worcester (1917); Charles Nutt, Hist.
of Worcester and Its People (1919), vol.
IV; Trans.
Am.
Soc.
Mech.
Engrs. , vol.
XXXIII (1912); Iron Age, Jan. 12, 1911; Pat.
Religion
He was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1899; a member of the International Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain; and an honorary member of the Société des Ingénieurs Civils de France.
Connections
In 1860 Morgan and his brother established a paper-bag manufacturing plant in Philadelphia, and designed an automatic machine for making bags, the great success of which placed paper-bag making for the first time on a commercial footing.
At his death in Worcester he was survived by his widow and five children.
