Morgan, Morgan, a prominent lay-worker of the early days of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was a native of Wales, but had come to this country while yet a youth, and settled in Pennsylvania. In 1726 he re- moved to the south of the Potomac, in Virginia, and there built in 1740 the first Episcopal church, now known as the Mill Creek Church, and situated in the parish of Winchester. He lived to an advanced age, pursuing to the last a course of ardent and active piety, which made him a light and a blessing to all within his influence. Under the direction also of the clergymen, whether present or absent, Morgan fulfilled the duties of lay-reader, which enabled him the more intimately to know the people's wants and cares, and to direct them along the path of duty. In the exercise of these duties he was succeeded by a son, who prosecuted them with the same affectionate, diligent, and humble spirit. Sec Episc. Recorder, vol. i. No. 5, quoted in Hawk's £ff/M.///.s7. p. 111-113.
Morgan, Nicholas J. B., D.D., a minister of the IMetliodist Episcopal Church of some note, was born in Bath County, Va., Nov. 23, 1811, He was the oldest son of the Kev, Gerald Morgan, also a preacher of the same bodv, who died in March, 1846, closing a forty- years' ministerial service of honor and usefulness long to be remembered among those for whom he labored. Nicholas's early educational advantages were secured at the common school, and under private tutorship at Harrisonburg, whither his parents removed when he was ten years old. He was converted in 1825, and shorth' after believed himself called to preach. He taught school a while to prepare for the work before entering ujmn it, and in 1829 was admitted into the Baltimore Conference, and apjiointed to the Fincastle Circuit. After tliis he successively served in this Con- ference as follows: in 1830, Pendleton; 1831, Liberty; 1832, Jefferson; 1833-34, Winchester Circuit; 1835 36, Warrenton; 1837, London; 1838-39, East Baltimore Station; 1840-41, Harper's Ferry; 1842-45, Kocking-
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ham District; 1846-47, Foundr_v, Washington City; 1848-50, Baltimore District; 1851-54, North Baltimore District ; 1855-56, Fayette Street Station ; 1857, Win- chester Station ; 1858-59, Baltimore City Station ; 1860- 61, Georgetown ; 1862-65, Baltimore District; 1866-69, Washington District; 1870-71, Baltimore City Station; and in 1872, First Charge, Annapolis. On the morning of his second Sabbath (March 24) in this charge he was taken with a chill while preaching. This resulted in pneumonia, and he died April 6, 1872, in Anne Arundel County, Md. From this list of appointments it is ap- parent that Dr. INIorgan was deemed fitted to fill the best stations in the Conference, and nineteen years out of the forty-three in which he preached he had the honor to be presiding elder, and in length of service in this office was exceeded only by Peter Cartwright. The esteem in which he was held by his ministerial breth- ren is best judged when it is known that he was regu- larly chosen to represent them in the highest ecclesias- tical council of the Church. He was elected to the General Conference in 1844, and to every succeeding one but the last, to w'hich he declined an election. On account of ill-health, he did not attend the session of 1868. Dr. Morgan certainly lived in an eventful period of Methodism. He had some knowledge of the agita- tion that produced the Methodist Protestant Church, and was an actor in the scenes through which the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, came into being. Though his district in 1844 was in Virginia, and liter- ally upon the border, he stood by the Methodist Epis- copal Church, and the Church South met with but little success in its bounds during his term upon it. It is true that while in General Conference in 1844 he A'oted for the so-called plan of separation, a step which he af- terwards regretted, yet to his fidelity may largely be at- tributed the adherence of nearly that whole section to the Methodist Episcopal Church. In the great trouble which came to his Conference from the action of the General Conference of 1860, incorporating a new chap- ter in the Discipline against slavery, lie stood faithfully for the Northern Church, and led the minority of the Baltimore Conference in 1860-61 opposed to the efforts made to take the Conference from under the jurisdiction of the Church ; though, notwithstanding his efforts, it resulted in the secession of a number of preachers and a large number of members from it to the Church South. But for the efforts of himself, his brother, Dr. L. F. Mor- gan, and a few others, very little of the old Baltimore Con- ference would have remained in the Northern Church. Like a true man and patriot, Virginian though he was, he stood by the government in the dark days of the Eebellion. He was antislavery in his convictions, Meth- odistic in doctrine, experience, and practice. All in all. Dr. Morgan's career was not that of a brilliant man, but rather that of a faithful and devoted man, endowed with more than ordinary capacity for work, and born to be a leader of his associates. " With strong intellectual endowments, there were blended in him those stanch moral qualities which made him the man he was. Men- tal power and moral force characterized him in the pul- pit and on the Conference floor. As a preacher, he was a man of one work. To this he gave the study of life." See Mimties of A nnual Conferences, 1873, p. 28- 30; Dr. M'Caulev, in New York Methodist, May 18, 1872, (J.H.W.)"