~ ROCHESTER'S HISTORY ~
AN ILLUSTRATED TIMELINE
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Lewis Henry Morgan
November 21, 1818 - December 17, 1881
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- Literary fame outlives that won by exertion in nearly every other
field, and no one in Rochester has yet done anything with the pen that
is likely to last longer, or be more widely read, than the works of Lewis
Henry Morgan. His parents, Jedediah and Harriet Morgan, were of New
England stock and residents of Aurora, New York, at the date of his birth,
November 21, 1818. He was graduated from Union college in 1840 and began
the successful practice of law in this city. He became Attorney for the
Seneca tribe and was adopted into their tribe. In 1840 he became interested
in railroads and mines of Michigan, the management of which led to his
gradual withdrawal from the practice of law. His membership in a
village society, the '' New Confederacy of the Iroquois,'' led to his study
of the Six Nations and ultimately to the composition of his League of the
Iroquois, published in 1851. While in Michigan he made frequent excursions
to the northern wilderness and became interested in the habits of the beaver.
His study of the animal is recorded in The American Beaver and His Works,
published in 1868. Mr. Morgan was a devoted friend of the Indians
and, while he wrote extensively about the race, he also attended their
councils and endeavored to protect them from imposition by the National
authorities. The work by which he is most widely known in the literary
world is his volume published in 1877 - Ancient Society ~ or Researches
in the Life of Human Progress from Savagery Through Barbarism rising to
Civilization. In addition to his books Mr. Morgan wrote a large number
of papers on subjects relating to ethnology that were published in pamphlet
form or in magazines and proceedings of scientific societies. He received
the degree of A. B. from Union college in 1840, and that of LL. D. in 1873.
The title in which he took most satisfaction was that of President of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor conferred
on him in 1879. Mr. Morgan represented the city of Rochester in the
State Legislature as a Member of Assembly in 1861, and as a Senator in
1867-8. He was married in 1851 to Mary E., daughter of Leonard Steele,
of Albany, New York, and died at his home in this city December 17, 1881.
He left one child, a son, on whose decease the estate will go to the University
of Rochester to establish a college for women ($80,000). Mrs. Morgan,
who died in 1883, willed that her separate estate should be devoted to
the same purpose as that of her husband.
He built a library behind his home on South Fitzhugh Street, and is considered today to be the father of American Anthropology. Mr. Morgan was also a primary organizer of the Rochester Historical Society. He planted Elms on East Ave.
Biographical Sketch from 'Rochester and the Post Express' 1895
