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MORGAN, William Downing 1813-1903

MORGAN, BORGHOLTHAUS, DAVIS, BARR

Posted By: Errin Wilker
Date: 12/7/2019 at 18:04:54

PASSING OF OUR OLDEST RESIDENT
William D. Morgan Dies Aged Ninety Years—A Man of True Christian Character Gone

Quietly and peacefully, as befitting the noble Christian life he had led, the Angel of Death called father W. D. Morgan to the world beyond at about the midnight hour Wednesday. He had been ailing about a week and his absence from his accustomed place in the M.E. church Sunday was evidence that all was not well with him—that something of an unusual nature had taken place to cause his absence. He arose from his bed on Sunday, 22d, with a dizziness and gradually failed from that time on to the end, suffering some in the early part of his illness, but latterly sleeping away the hours as peacefully as a babe. On the 13th he attended the funeral of Mr. Hazelton, going to Oak Hill cemetery as one of the honorary pall bearers. For one of his advanced years. Grandpa Morgan was very active, and during the past season made a partial ascent of Mt. Hosmer, going up to view the progress of the new reservoir. But it is of the beautiful Christian life of deceased that we would now speak.

The deceased was converted and united with the church while at Quincy, Ill., and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal branch of the church militant until God called him to fellowship in the church triumphant. His present pastor speaks of him thus: “During my short pastorate here, brother Morgan’s life and example has been to me a great help and encouragement. His presence in his pew has always been an inspiration to me and I shall greatly miss his friendship and his counsel I shall miss him in the Sunday school, as will also the members and friends engaged in this good work, and to whom his life and friendship seemed like a benediction from Heaven. He was one of God’s noblemen, and his place will not be easily filled, but what is thus our loss is Heaven’s gain. “The Lord gave; the Lord hath taken away.”

William Downing Morgan was born February 6th, 1813, in Concord, state of Delaware. When eight years of age, his father removed to the state of Maryland and at fourteen the family again removed to Beaver, Pennsylvania, where he remained until he was twenty-four. In the spring of 1839 he became a resident of Quincy, Ill., remaining there until November 3d, 1858, when he came to Lansing, and here he has since resided. He learned the carpenters’ trade with his father in the fifties, and was in the machinery and foundry business in the sixties and seventies, engaging in grain buying and pork packing also for many years. In the fall of 1841, he was married to Maria Borgholthaus with whom he lived a happy life for over fifty seven years, until her peaceful death, which occurred in the spring of 1899. There was born to them two children, a boy and a girl. The boy died in infancy; the girl lived to marry Dr. J. W. Davis, in the year 1866, and with whom deceased has had a very pleasant home since 1894.

The above facts are taken from a sketch written by Grandpa Morgan himself on the 18th day of August, 1901, the handwriting showing a firm and steady control of the pen. In closing he adds these touching lines: “I am waiting now for my dear Savior’s time to say, ‘come and dwell with me.’”

It seemed fitting that, in his declining years, after his persuasive and eloquent voice and his keen power of understanding were silenced and modified, Mr. Morgan should continue to dwell in the community which honored him so abundantly in the days of his strength, where he had reared his little family, where had had buried his dead and where a small, very small remnant of friends with sympathies attuned to his advanced age and growing infirmities, soothed his last years.

With all of its superb equipment, the mind of Grandpa Morgan was as simple as that of a child. He possessed that sort of a confiding and trusting nature which inspires love and compels affection. His heart and mind were harmoniously attuned to all that was gentle and sweet in human existence. He loved the grass and the trees and the flowers and the birds and all of the precious gifts of God. With Mr. Morgan the thought of death was not a thing to be put aside or avoided. He was free to speak of it to those near to him. It is believed that for some time past he regarded his departure from this world as an early possibility. This created no fear or gloom in his mind. He was by temperament a profoundly religious man and much of his time was occupied in the contemplation of spiritual problems. His strongest attachments were for those things which outlast the fleeting breath and which are not material in their character. He trusted implicitly in the idea of ultimate and universal justice and in the benevolence of an overruling Providence.

It was with the acquisitions of a useful and honorable life, that was a joy to his fellows, and with the belief that in the great future there will be a recompense for duty faithfully fulfilled, that Grandpa Morgan enters the Kingdom of Heaven. His allotted years on earth were filled with useful and honorable achievement. As a husband, a father, a friend, a neighbor, a citizen, he set forth to the world an example of noble fidelity which “shall smell sweet and blossom in the dust.”

Tomorrow morning all that is mortal of this good man will be laid away in Oak Hill. The Masonic order, of which he had long been a member, will have charge of the funeral. Services will be held at the family home on Center street at 9:00 o’clock.

Source: Find A Grave

*NOTE* William Morgan had a sister, Mary G. (Morgan) Barr who is buried in Keokuk, IA. (see Find a Grave for her burial info.) There may have been other siblings, as well. I am NOT related to the deceased, and have no further information.

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Added by Joy Moore 12/7/2019:

Source: Decorah Republican Dec. 10, 1903 Page 6 Col 1

William D. Morgan died at the home of his daughter (Mrs. J. W. Davis) in Lansing, Dec. 2d, aged ninety years on the 6th of last February. Born in Del­aware, he lived in youth in Maryland and Pennsylvania until 1839 when he came to Quincy, Ill. In 1858 he came to Lansing, where he has since lived. Pioneers knew him as a carpenter, a dealer in machinery, a founder, also a grain buyer and pork packer during the years when the river towns were market places for the interior. From early life he was a zealous Methodist, and until the last Sabbath of his life, he was always in his accustomed seat at church. His daughter is his only survivor.


 

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