My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE C. MORGAN, though comparatively a young man, being less than fifty years of age, has made a record as one of the most energetic and enterprising business men of Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He is the proprietor of the grain elevator and the flour, feed and coal depot at Elm street and the Stony Creek Railroad. He is descended from Welsh-Quaker stock, although he is himself a member of the Oak Street Methodist church, Norristown.

George C. Morgan was born at Chester Springs, Chester county, Pennsylvania, June 10, 1856. He is the son of Antrim F. and Martha (Harris) Morgan. His father and mother had five children as follows: Thomas H., who resides at the old family homestead in Quakertown, Bucks county, Pennsylvania; Hannah, widow of Stephen F. Penrose; Kate, deceased, who married Charles E. Smulling, of Quakertown; George C., subject of this sketch; and Joseph A., of Norristown.

Antrim Foulke Morgan, father, was born at Montgomeryville, in Montgomery county, March 8, 1818. On reaching manhood he removed to. Chester Springs, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he engaged in the milling business with his brother Joseph for a number of years. The remainder of his life was spent at Quakertown, Bucks county, where he became a farmer and continued in that occupation until his death. He also engaged in the wood business there for a number of years. In politics he was a Whig, and a Republican after the formation of that party in 1856, but in the latter years of his life he affiliated with the Prohibition party, believing that the importance of legislation against the liquor traffic overbalanced every other issue. He was a life-long member of the Society of Friends. On the 31st of December, 1846, he married Martha Harris, who was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and who died at Quakertown, in Bucks county, three months after the decease of her husband, in 1898, at the age of seventy-four years. Antrim Foulke died in 1897 at the age of seventy- nine years. He was for many years a trustee of the Friends’ School at Quakertown, and also one of the elders of the Society at that place. In 1894 he was the candidate of the Prohibition party for congress in the district composed of Bucks and Montgomery counties, and in 1895 the candidate of the same party for the legislature. He was a member of Horsham Friends’ Meeting in his younger days.

Morgan Morgan, the grandfather, born 5th- mo. 16, 1782, was a justice of the peace at Montgomeryville for twenty-five years. He was a blacksmith and gunsmith by trade, and was one of the workmen in that occupation who could make a double barreled gun in the early days. He was a native of Horsham township, of Welsh parentage, his father having emigrated from Wales and settled there, where he died. He was a member of Horsham Friends’ Meeting, and one of the building committee appointed to erect the present meeting house. Morgan Morgan married, 11th-mo. 15, 1810, Ann Custard, born 8th- mo. 14, 1787. Their children: Amelia, born 8th- mo. 5, 1811, died at the age of four months; Joseph C., born 10th-mo. 10, 1812, died 2d-mo. 27, 1888; Amelia Ann, born 5th-mo. 10, 1815, died in 1855; Antrim F., born 8th-mo. 31, 1818, died 12th-mo. 24, 1897; George, born 2d-mo. 7, 1821, died 3d-mo. 2, 1839; Elizabeth, born 6th-mo. 20, 1823; Hannah, born 12th-mo. 28, 1828.

Thomas Harris, maternal grandfather, was the son of Colonel John Harris, of Revolutionary fame. Col. John Harris was a native of England. He was born April 1, 1753, and died December 25, 1838, at the age of eighty-three years, three months and six days. He came to America when a boy, and settled in Chester county, Pennsylvania. He was an officer in General Anthony Wayne’s Division. He was a farmer by occupation and also operated a mill. Thomas Harris, grandfather, was a native of Chester county, and married Catharine Smith, who was of German descent. He was born in 1780, and died in 1842. His wife was born May 5, 1783, and died August 2, 1856. Their children: Thomas, born May 3, 1814, died September 22, 1825; Jackson, born 10th-mo. 8, 1819, died 7th-mo. 3, 1822; Mary, born 11th-mo. 29, 1823, died 6th-mo. 14, 1852; Martha, mother of George C. Morgan, born 10th-mo. 24, 1825, died 3d-mo., 10, 1898.

George C. Morgan was reared in Quakertown, and attended the Friends’ school there in his boyhood days. On leaving school he went to Conshohocken, where he spent two years learning the trade of miller with his future father-in-law, John J. Brooke, now a resident of Norristown. At the close of his apprenticeship he went to Greenlane, on the Perkiomen, where he followed the occupation of milling for two years. In 1878 he removed to Norristown, and purchased the old mill at the corner of Main and Markley streets which he soon afterwards demolished and re-established it near the corner of Marshall and Barbadoes streets. It was a large and well equipped structure in every respect. He operated it by steam and water for nearly twenty years, from 1879 to 1898. In the last named year he sold it to the Stony Creek Milling Company, who in turn disposed of it to the Eastern Milling and Export Company.

In 1895 Mr. Morgan bought the Shaffer brick manufacturing plant, located on Forest avenue, Norristown, but just beyond the borough limits, and operated it very successfully for a number of years, the establishment being finally merged into the Morgan Brick Company, which, on Mr. Morgan’s withdrawal, became the Norristown Brick Company. In 1902 Mr. Morgan formed a partnership with his son, Warren B. Morgan, and built a grain elevator and feed house on the Stony Creek Railroad at Elm street. He has combined this business with the retail coal trade and it has since been successfully conducted under the firm name of George C. Morgan & Son.

Mr. Morgan married, on March 25, 1880, Miss Inez, eldest daughter of John Jacob and Catharine (Hunsberger) Brooke. They have had nine children, as follows: Warren B., associated with his father in business; Lottie; Elsie; George R.; John J. B.; Inez; Blanche; Janet; and Catharine. Elsie and Janet died at the age of eighteen and eleven months, respectively.

Mr. Morgan is class leader and president of the board of trustees of Oak Street Methodist Episcopal church, of Norristown, of which he and his family are members. In politics he is an active and prominent Prohibitionists, being earnestly devoted to antagonism to the liquor interests. He has frequently been a candidate for public office on the ticket of that party. He has been treasurer of the Prohibition county committee since 1880. He was for two years postmaster at Hillegass. Mr. Morgan is actively connected with several Norristown enterprises. He is a director in the West Norristown Building & Loan Association. In addition to his other occupations, Mr. Morgan, some years ago, engaged very extensively in building operations in the vicinity of Green and Brown streets, in the borough of Norristown, erecting many dwellings. He has also been largely identified with the ownership of real estate in other sections of Norristown. Ms. Morgan has done much to assist in the progress of the community in which he lives, exerting himself vigorously in whatever occupations he has been engaged, and being in every respect a useful and valuable citizen.

The Brooke family, to which Mrs. Morgan belongs, is among the oldest in Montgomery county. John is a prominent name in the family, there having been a John Brooke in nearly every generation to the present. John Brooke, with Frances, his wife, and two sons, James and Matthew, arrived in Pennsylvania from Yorkshire, England, in 1699. John had purchased from William Penn a tract of seven hundred and fifty acres of land, and on his death his sons took up the land in the township of Limerick, settling upon it. It occupied the central portion of the township. The house which they built in I714 has been partly incorporated into the modern dwelling which is still standing on the premises originally owned by them, and the house built by Matthew Brooke’s widow in 1721 was torn down in 1835 by one of the Bornemans who owned the property at that time. John Brooke, the father of James and Matthew, and the progenitor of the family in America, was detained, according to a family tradition, in quarantine at Gloucester, below Philadelphia, with a contagious disease, and died there. His will corroborates the tradition, as it bears date 8th-mo. 25, 1699, directing that his property be divided among his three sons, one Jonathan, having been left in England. The Brookes were among the earliest settlers above the Perkiomen, although there was a Swedish settlement at Douglassville, and a few Germans had even then located themselves in New Hanover township. James and Matthew Brooke set apart a burial place containing two acres and four perches of land, and a deed was made for it to trustees by their sons, William and George Brooke.

John J. Brooke, father of Mrs. George C. Morgan, was born August 21, 1840, on the homestead of later generations of the family in Lower Pottsgrove township. He was educated in the schools of the neighborhood, working at intervals on the farm as was then customary in the rural districts of the county. He learned the milling trade at what was then known as Brower’s Mill, in Plymouth township. In 1867 Mr. Brooke purchased the mill and operated it himself with the exception of one year, 1882, when he rented it to Jonathan Nyce, until 1899, when he sold it to A. T. Cross, who has since sold it to the Alan Wood Steel Company, at Ivy Rock, and the mill site is now a part of their extensive grounds. Since selling his mill in Plymouth township, Mr. Brooke has been employed a part of the time at the old Morgan Mill, on Marshall street, Norristown. He lives retired at No. 1020 Main street, in that borough.

John J. Brooke married Catharine, daughter of Samuel H. and Catharine (Haldeman) Hunsberger, of East Coventry township, Chester county, Pennsylvania. Her parents lived about four miles from Pottstown, her father being a miller and farmer. Mrs. Brooke’s mother was the daughter of Abraham Haldeman, who was a Mennonite preacher for many years. The Hunsbergers were also an old Mennonite family, long domiciled in the vicinity of Sumneytown, in Montgomery county. Samuel H. Hunsberger was a Republican in politics, and served for a number of years as a supervisor in East Coventry township.

Mr. and Mrs. John J. Brooke have the following children: Inez, wife of George C. Morgan; Mary, wife of Allen Hallman; Charlotte, wife of William H. Maser, of Upper Merion township, Montgomery county; and Miss Daisy, residing with her parents. In addition to the children mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Brooke had a son John and a daughter Lillian, who are deceased.

John Brooke, grandfather of Mrs. Morgan, married Maria Christman, of an old Lower Pottsgrove family. They resided at Crooked Hill, in that township. He was a farmer, and died January 27, 1861, at the age of sixty-two years. He had nine children, all of whom are now deceased except John J., father of Mrs. Morgan; Firman, a druggist in Chicago, and Josiah, who lives retired in Philadelphia.

Mrs. Morgan’s great-grandfather was twice married and died in 1812. He was the son of Matthew Brooke, one of the immigrant’s three sons. The surviving brothers and sisters of Mrs. John J. Brooke are Abraham, residing in Virginia; Elizabeth (Mrs. John Detwiler), of Clifton, Virginia; Annie (Mrs. Thomas Whiteman), of Parkesburg, Pennsylvania; and Emma (Mrs. Penrose Thomas), of Norristown, Pennsylvania.