San Francisco County

Biographies


 

 

 

BARTLETT MORGAN

 

BARTLETT MORGAN, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Alameda county and druggist, bookseller and stationer of Oakland, was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, September 27, 1827, a son of John and Clarissa (Stuart) Morgan, both natives of New York State.  The parents of both settled in Lawrenceburg in 1816, and there the parents of Mr. Bartlett Morgan were married.  The mother died at the age of forty-six, leaving five sons and two daughters, of whom two sons and one daughter are living (1890): Benjamin Frank, a Methodist minister of Indianapolis, now visiting his brother in this city on leave of absence from the Indiana Conference.  His wife died in 1889, without male issue.  The oldest brother, Torrence George Morgan, born in 1821, died in 1846, leaving one son, Atwell Morgan, now a merchant of Andersonville, Indiana, with two sons.  There are two half-brothers Morgan, also residing near that town.  The father, John Morgan, born April 26, 1800, settled on a farm near Andersonville in 1829 and also kept a store.  He was a local preacher of the United Brethren sixty-three years and a Justice of the Peace for many years.  He died August 1, 1889.  The grandfather, Torrence Morgan, a native of Ireland, was married in New York State to Mary Miller, born in that State of German descent.  After the removal to Lawrenceburg he was accidentally drowned, at the age of about forty, and his wife also.  Grandfather Denis Stuart was married to a native of New England, and after the removal to Lawrenceburg served in the Indian war with his eldest son, Barzillah Morgan, under General W. H. Harrison .  He died on his farm near Greensburg, Indiana, at the advanced age of nearly 100.

      “Bart” Morgan, the subject of this sketch, received his early education in the log schoolhouse with puncheon floor, near his father’s farm, and remained with his parents until the age of seventeen.  He then went into a drug store in Laurel, Indiana, where he remained five years.  Having saved some money he went into the dry-goods business on his own account in Clarksburg, Decatur county, Indiana.  There he was married in 1852 to Miss Angeline Donnell, a native of that county, who died of consumption some six months later.  In 1853 Mr. Morgan set out for California by way of New York and Panama, arriving in San Francisco the end of the same year.  He went to mining in Placerville that winter and moved to Georgetown in 1854.  He spent over twelve years mining and prospecting, and in 1866 opened a drug-store in Georgetown, which he conducted until 1869, when he moved to this city.  Here he served as clerk in the assessor’s department of the United States internal revenue, and for a time in San Francisco, when the bureaus of both cities were united.  After two or three years on this bay he found it advisable to return to Georgetown as a relief from catarrh, and remained there as clerk about two years.  In the spring of 1874 he again came to Oakland and opened a drug-store, with books and stationery, on the corner of Market and Seventh streets, where, with the mere change from one corner to the other.  December 1, 1877, he has since carried on business.  He was again married in 1871, to Catherine Armstrong, who died of consumption in this city in 1878, leaving no issue.  Mr. Morgan was elected a Supervisor in 1884, and still fills that position by re-election until the present time, being Chairman of the Board of Supervisors since 1889.  His services as Supervisor and Chairman have met with very general acceptance in the community, and he was renominated to that office in 1890.  He has been a member of the Republican party since its organization in this State in 1855, and is now a member of its Central Committee in this city.  He is also a member of University Lodge, No. 144, I. O. O. F. and has belonged to that order since February 3, 1870.

Transcribed by Donna L. Becker 

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 2, pages 679-680, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.


© 2006 Donna L. Becker.

 

 

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