Background
Here on a farm in Killingworth (now Clinton), Connecticut, Charles was born, the son of Col. George and Elizabeth (Redfield) Morgan.
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Charles Morgan
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At fourteen he went to New York City, which became his permanent home.
Starting as a grocery clerk, he was in business for himself at twenty-one, with a shop on Peck Slip, selling provisions to ships.
He next began to import fruit directly from the south.
This venture led to a line of sailing vessels to the West Indies.
Quick to realize the value of steam, he secured an interest in the David Brown, the first steamship on the New York-Charleston run.
In 1835, even before Texas secured its independence, Morgan invaded the Gulf waters which were to be the scene of his greatest activity and success, sending the steamer Columbia from New Orleans to Galveston.
He soon had a regular line of mail steamers plying between those points.
With Arnold Harris, Morgan established the Texas & New Orleans Mail Line, the Mexican Ocean Mail & Inland Company, and the Southern Mail Steamship Company.
On the eve of the Civil War, Judah P. Benjamin stated to a congressional committee that Morgan's steamers did "all the business on the Gulf. "
During the middle fifties came the "war of the three commodores" between Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and George Law [qq. v. ]
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During his absence, Morgan and Garrison manipulated stock prices in such a way that they profited while Vanderbilt lost heavily.
I will ruin you. "
Walker was ruined, but Morgan and Garrison survived.
The Civil War was naturally a crisis for a Northern man with much of his capital tied up in Southern waters.
Three of Morgan's steamers were seized at New Orleans for the Confederate service on Apr. 28, 1861, but several others were chartered or sold for Union service, three of them bringing him approximately $650, 000, a sum far in excess of their value.
At the close of the war, Morgan picked up several steamers at auction for less than half of what they had cost the government.
He started what is still known as the Morgan Line, from New York to New Orleans, and about 1870 was called "the largest shipowner in the United States. "
About this time he began to interest himself in railroads.
On May 25, 1869, he purchased for $2, 050, 000 the bankrupt New Orleans, Opelousas & Great Western Railroad, which ran eighty miles westward from New Orleans along the north side of the great swamp region to the foot of Grand Bay at Brashear City.
This terminus was renamed Morgan City, while the road became "Morgan's Louisiana & Texas Railroad. "
Extending his control still further, he acquired two short Texas lines.
In 1883 these lines were purchased from the Morgan heirs for $7, 500, 000 by the Southern Pacific Railroad, and became part of its system.
In 1870 he had given $50, 000 to establish a school in his native town of Clinton.
Like almost everything else with which he was connected it bore the name of Morgan.
He is said, however, to have been quiet and unostentatious, and a very kindly master to the thousands in his employ.
Although he believed in one-man control, he had the happy faculty of choosing able lieutenants.
Three of these, J. C. Harris, Quintard, and Whitney, were his sons-in-law.
[N. H. Morgan, Morgan Geneal.
(1869); L. E. Stanton, An Account of the Dedication of the Morgan School Building, Clinton, Connecticut (1873); James Parton and others, Sketches of Men of Progress (1870 - 71), pp. 419-23; W. O. Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers (1916); W. V. Wells, Walker's Expedition to Nicaragua (1856); W. A. Croffut, The Vanderbilts and the Story of their Fortune (1886); Official Records of the Union and Confed.
Navies, 1 ser.
IV, 165; House Ex.
Doc.
29, 30 Cong. , 1 Sess. ; House Ex.
Doc.
337, 40 Cong. , 2 Sess. , p. 24; H. V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the U. S. , 1870-71, p. 344, 1877, p. 849, 1878, p. 548; Commercial & Financial Chronicle (N. Y. ), Feb. 24, 1883; and M. Y. Beach, The Wealth and Biog.
Politics
When Vanderbilt opened the Nicaragua Transit and ran steamships on the Atlantic and Pacific in opposition to the Law-Aspinwall mail subsidy lines, he made Morgan and C. K. Garrison [q. v. ] his agents in New York and San Francisco respectively, Morgan becoming president when Vanderbilt went to Europe in 1853.
Connections
There were no children by his second marriage.
- married:
- Emily
- son-in-law:
- T.
- son-in-law:
- A.
- children:
- Emily
He was twice married: on Dec. 20, 1817, to Emily Reeves, who bore him five children, and after her death in 1850, to Mary Jane Sexton, June 24, 1852.
In 1850 he had secured control of the T. F. Secor marine engine works in New York, changing the name to the Morgan Iron Works, but he turned over the actual control to his son-in-law, G. W. Quintard q.v., who built more machinery than anyone else for the Union navy.
He was chairman of the board and his son-in-law Charles A. Whitney, president.
He was twice married: on Dec. 20, 1817, to Emily Reeves, who bore him five children, and after her death in 1850, to Mary Jane Sexton, June 24, 1852.
