Los Angeles County
Biographies
ELMER ELLSWORTH MORGAN
MORGAN, ELMER ELLSWORH, Real Estate and Investment, Los Angeles, California, was born in a log cabin at De Witt, Iowa, on September 13, 1861, the son of Isaac Fisher Morgan and Sarah Elizabeth (Williams) Morgan. He was united in marriage to Nina May Golden at Moline, Illinois, on October 17, 1906, and to them there has been born a daughter Katherine Elizabeth Morgan. Mr. Morgan is of German and English descent, his paternal grandparents having been Quakers and his maternal forbears adherents of the Methodist faith. The former were members of an old Kentucky family, also prominent in Georgia, and the latter were among the early settlers of Tennessee. A direct descendant of General Daniel Morgan, of Revolutionary fame, Mr. Morgan’s father served the Union in Company A, Twenty-sixth Iowa Volunteer Infantry, for three years during the Civil War and at the close of the struggle, settled on a farm in Scott County, Iowa. He removed to another farm in Powshiek County, Iowa, in the early seventies.
The larger part of his boyhood Mr. Morgan spent on the plains and he began to work when he was about five years of age. When he was six years old he dropped corn from the first Brown corn planter used in eastern Iowa. He had no schooling whatever during his boyhood and was his own instructor with the exception of four months spent in a small academy at De Witt, Iowa, when he was twenty-two years of age. He passed the teacher’s examination at Clinton, Iowa, and expected to teach school for a livelihood, but in the meantime visited Moline, Illinois, and there became a student at law with W. A. Meese, one of the foremost attorneys of that section at the time.
Mr. Morgan read law for about two years and during that time also became interested actively in the real estate and collection business, with the result that in 1886 he abandoned his law studies and devoted himself exclusively to real estate. This was not his first business venture, however, for when he was only sixteen years of age he had embarked in the cattle business and gained a wide experience in that line. He drove cattle from Iowa through Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas and was compelled to go through a great number of hardships, having to encounter the Indians and cattle thieves, both of which classes were very numerous in those days.
During his long residence in Moline, Mr. Morgan was one of its most enterprising business men, imbued with an extraordinary amount of public spirit. A Republican in politics, he took a keen interest in political affairs but never was active in the party. He had the honor, however, of holding various important public offices outside of the political field and was greatly interested in up-building of the old plow city of Moline. He was President of the Moline Club, known throughout Illinois as one of the wideawake clubs of the State, and in this capacity raised the money in one day to build the beautiful Manufacturers’ Hotel of Moline. He also raised the money to build their first modern theater and helped to establish several important manufacturing enterprises.
Mr. Morgan joined the Illinois National Guard in 1884 as a private and worked his way up to Major and Adjutant General of the Third Brigade, Illinois National Guard, resigning therefrom on the first day of February, 1912, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel (retired). He participated in several important maneuvers and riots during his time of service and also organized the Tenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, known also as the Clendenin Provisional Regiment, for service in the Spanish-American war. They never were called out of the State, but were held ready to leave at any time. He assisted in the organization of the Army and Navy League.
Mr. Morgan sold out his business in Moline in Jan., 1912, and on Feb. 9, of the same year, located in Los Angeles, Cal. Before he left Moline, the business men, manufacturers and friends of Mr. Morgan tendered him a public banquet, at which he was presented with a gold watch and chain, a diamond stud and a gold knife with diamond setting. The old soldiers of the city also banqueted him and in addition to presenting him with a beautiful watch charm, gave him a memorial in appreciation of the good he had done for the old veterans and their widows.
A man of unusual endurance powers, Mr. Morgan, in 1896, toured Europe on a bicycle, making in all 4,000 miles and before leaving for the Old Country, had toured over 1,000 miles in the United States. He visited England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Holland and Belgium, and still keeps in perfect condition the machine on which he rode.
He has always taken a great interest in irrigation and navigation and has attended several of the National Rivers and Harbors Congresses at Washington, D. C., also the meetings of the national Boards of Trade.
He belongs to the Masons, Elks, Redmen, Knights of Pythias, Select Knights and also is a Turner. He leans towards the Unitarian Church and was one of four who built the First Unitarian Church of Moline, Illinois.
Transcribed
by Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 455,
International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Boston, Atlanta. 1913.
© 2010 Joyce
Rugeroni.
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BIOGRAPIES