Martha Matilda McGill Nelson - Life Story Part Ten

Martha Morgan:A Journey to Zion

Story by Allen Morgan Kendall

Some editing by Lois C. Berrett

Her Children 

On Thursday 1 March 1900 at a routine “Old Folk's Festival” held at the Levan Opera House

(yes, there really was an opera house in Levan), a fine evening of banquet and entertainment

was had. After the dinner, prizes were awarded to various persons present recognizing life accomplishments.  First prize was awarded to Martha Morgan for a supreme achievement: 11 children, 55 grandchildren, and 45 great-grandchildren.50 It represented an ideal which must have

been admired by others, but was certainly at the very core of her own life.

No description of Martha's life would be complete without a snapshot of the children that surrounded her, both near and far, as the new century began.

Catherine Banks Morgan also known as Katie ran aboarding house in a mining town west of the Beaver-Milford area with two children.  She and husband George Adam Ellison and 4 children lived next door to her parents in Levan in 1870. George obtained employ in the gold mines near Minersville and they lived there with children in 1880. She was the mother of nine children.  She eventually moved to Salt Lake City with a daughter and family, where she died in 1923.

Catherine Banks Morgan

Daniel Morgan farmed in Wellington, Utah. He married Clarissa Adelaide Baxter. She died in 1890.  He living with him then were 6 sons, a widowed daughter, and 4 grandchildren.  Initially living in Nephi, they moved to Levan by 1870 where they remained until about 1876, then moving to Aurora, in Sevier County, and on to Carbon County in about 1889, where he operated a cattle ranch.51 They had 11 children. Daniel preceded his mother in death in 1902.

Daniel Morgan

Agnes Beveridge Morganlived  in Uintah County with her day laborer husband James Nathaniel Cook, 3 children and a boarder. She had given birth to 8 children. She and James were married in the Endowment House in 1869. They lived in Nephi and Levan (where her husband owned a store), in addition to Wayne and Uintah counties. After 1900 they moved to Idaho living in several locations. After the death of her husband, Agnes lived with a daughter in Ririe, Idaho. Both she and her husband were remembered as true and faithful, having lived full lives of service.52

Agnes Beveridge Morgan

Jane Nelson Morgan died in Aurora, Utah in 1889 at the age of 40, and was buried in Levan.

She had married Amos Gustin Sly in 1873 in Levan and they had lived there until moving

to Aurora with brother Daniel. They were the parents of seven children. Their marriage was

sealed in the new Manti Temple in 1888.

Jane Nelson Morgan

Mary Ann Elizabeth Morgan was born 30 September 1853 in Nephi, Utah.  She only lived just over one year.  She died 6 October 1854.

William Thomas Morgan was born 2 March 1856 in Cedar City.  Some sources says that he died the following September.  But I, Lois Berrett, have a copy of the 1860 Utah US Census and he is listed there and reported to be 4 years old.  He does not appear in the 1870 US Census.

Edward Nelson Morgan, lived in Beaver, working as a farmer. He married a first cousin Martha Jane Patterson in 1881. Three sons and a daughter died as children, two daughters survived to adulthood. Their marriage was sealed in the Logan Temple in 1886. Edward died in Beaver in 1923, remembered

as a kind husband, loving father and devoted to his religion.53

Edward Nelson Morgan

John Athos Morgan married Mary Elizabeth Alexander in 1890 and was the father of two sons. They were sealed in Manti temple in 1894.  He farmed in Levan for his entire life. He served  as the first president of the town board of newly incorporated Levan at the time.54 Mary Elizabeth died in 1902, and he married Elsie Paystrup the next year in the Manti temple. Three sons were born to this

marriage. John died in 1919 in Levan.

John Athos Morgan

Martha Ettie Morgan lived in Sandy, Utah with husband William May, a smelter worker, and 8 children. They had married in 1881 in Levan and had lived in Juab before moving to the Salt Lake City area about 1890. She died in Salt Lake County in 1945 at the age of 82.

Martha Ettie Morgan

James Nathaniel Morgan farmed in the Levan area. In 1909 James, 45, married Eliza Hofheins, 39.  Eliza had lived on the same block as the Morgan family in Levan for her entire life. They had two children before James died of tuberculosis in 1917.

James Nathaniel Morgan

Ira Robert Morgan was also a lifelong resident of Levan, and a farmer. He had married neighbor Mattie Hofheins (sister to Eliza) in the Manti temple in November 1894, on the same day brother John A. and first wife were sealed. In time they were the parents of eight children. Ira died of heatstroke in 1931 at

the age of 63 while working in the fields with his sons.55, 56

Ira Robert Morgan

Sources: 

50. Salt Lake City. Deseret Evening News, 7 March 1900.

51. Lennstrom, Elva Curtis. History of Daniel A. Morgan. Daughters of Utah Pioneers. 1968.

52. Moss, Nora E. Agnes Beverage Morgan Cook 1846-1934. Lovell Family History Website,

http://lovellfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Morgan.

53. Obituary of Edward Nelson Morgan. Southern Utonian, 15 June 1923.

54. A History of Levan, pp. 68-70.

55. Copy of Obituary of Ira Robert Morgan, in possession of author.

56. Historical sketches of children taken from information in www.new.familysearch.org and

various census records.