Daniel Morgan's GRAVE MATTERS (JP Morgan's big fail)

Rockefeller financed and ressurected Williamsburg in the 1930s, but J P Morgan's proposal to visit Daniel Morgan grave never went anywhere so to speak.

What year was the proposal to visit made?

1891 or 1904 or both?

1891

Engles writes,

In an undated Baltimore Sun article in the Daniel Morgan Collection at the Handley Archives, financier J. Pierpont Morgan proposed to “visit Winchester in the near future and erect a handsome monument over the grave of his ancestor, General Daniel Morgan. The grave is in [Mount] Hebron Cemetery. Nothing remains of the flat stone which originally covered it but a few scattered fragments, the rest having been carried away.” The monument Morgan proposed to erect is described as “of such magnitude as is worthy of General Morgan’s greatness.”

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Engles theorizes this Baltimore Sun article might have been before August 13, 1891

because of Nemo’s Poem published in the Winchester Star on that date of August 13, 1891.

Engles writes,

Kate McVicar’s nom de plume was Nemo, published a poem in the Winchester Star on this date, decrying the absence of a marker on Morgan’s grave.

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The article’s authors, Engle and her researcher Morris theorize the story on J Pierpont Morgan noted above was near this date because the poem states “a noble generous friend,” might help out. That noble generous friend might be JP Morgan.

1904

A Facebook poster posted an article from the Times-Dispatch stating it was 1904. This article is reproduced below.

Why no Results?

But now we we wonder what stopped JP Morgan's pursuit to make a better monument for Daniel Morgan?

His not pursuing this might be because of the demand high level financial deadlines require. In 1904, the Supreme Court dissolved the Northern Security company; though Morgan did not lose money, his all-powerful political reputation suffered.

But his not following up on this matter could be for other reasons?

Maybe he found out he was not related to Daniel Morgan or simply there was lack of proof.

Or even another reason?

Showing up in Winchester would have meant press and photographs. He did not like publicity. He had severe rosacea.

From Wikipedia:

Morgan often had a tremendous physical effect on people; one man said that a visit from Morgan left him feeling "as if a gale had blown through the house."[4] He was physically large with massive shoulders, piercing eyes, and a purple nose.[67]

He was known to dislike publicity and hated being photographed without his permission; as a result of his self-consciousness of his rosacea, all of his professional portraits were retouched.[68]

His deformed nose was due to a disease called rhinophyma, which can result from rosacea. As the deformity worsens, pits, nodules, fissures, lobulations, and pedunculation contort the nose. This condition inspired the crude taunt "Johnny Morgan's nasal organ has a purple hue."[69]

Surgeons could have shaved away the rhinophymous growth of sebaceous tissue during Morgan's lifetime, but as a child he suffered from infantile seizures, and Morgan's son-in-law, Herbert L. Satterlee, has speculated that he did not seek surgery for his nose because he feared the seizures would return.[70]

His social and professional self-confidence were too well established to be undermined by this affliction. It appeared as if he dared people to meet him squarely and not shrink from the sight, asserting the force of his character over the ugliness of his face.[71]

Compiled and written by Jim Moyer 1/9/2016

updated 2/23/16, 2/6/2017, 2/7/2017, 2/8/2017, 2/28/2017, 4/22/2017, 4/23/2017, (2/23/2019, 2/24/2019 just prologue changed) , 4/29/2019, 7/4/2019, updated 11/29/23, 11/30/2023

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Sources

Winchester Frederick County Historical Society Journal Volume XIV 2002 issue on Daniel Morgan, pages 112 to 130, by Elizabeth Gold Crawford Engle and Mary Thomason Morris (Archivist and Researcher for Clarke Co Historical Assn) for an article entitled: Cannons and Marble: A Monument for Daniel Morgan.

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