Evening star., 1939-01-29
Morgan Quits Insurance Firm,
Source of Family Fortune
Retires From Company
Greut-Grundfuther
Helped Found
~ the Associated Press.

~ the Associated Press.
NEW YORK, Jan. 28-One hun
dred and twenty years active family
association with the firm that made
he first Morgan fortune was ended
his week when j. P. Morgan re-
signed as director of Aetna In
surance Co.
Now in his 72d year, the present
J. P is gradually divesting himself
of all active business responsibilities.
He declined to be just ''figurehead"
in the fire insurance concern mot
to be confused with Aetna Life In
surance co.., and so retired.
His own sons already have their
shoulders loaded with responsibilities
in other companies larger and more
closely allied to the family's newer
financial interests, and in all likeli-
hood will not carry on tradition
established by four generations of
ancestors.
1t was in 1919 that J. P.'s great
grandfather, Joseph Morgan, pros
porous Hartford tavern keeper,
helped found the company.
Personal Credit Pledged.
The founders did not put in cash,
instead signing notes, of from SIS, 900
to $4,000, pledging their personal
credit as the foundation of the COM
pany's credit.
Sixteen years later, in 1885, a $40
100000 fire razed New York's finan-
cial district. Many of the Hartford
hackers of Aetna were afraid the
company would go under. But Mr..
Morgan had closely watched the
company's management and had
confidence in the company and in
himself. He bought up, at a dis
count, all the notes that were
offered.
His judgment was right. The
premiums kept coming in; the COM
pany paid off all just claims and
prospered. Notes were exchanged
for stock, and Joseph Morgan, a
family historian wrote, had a
rxortune."
IT was true that he had previously
been considered one of Hartford S
sohd men," but cash was scarce in
1hose days.
An ancestor of Joseph, Miles Nor
gan, settled in Massachusetts in
1886. Joseph's father, also named
Joseph, fought in the Revolutionary
army and later settled down on a
farm near the village of Hartford.
War Stimulates Commerce.
The war and its aftermath stimu-
lated internal commerce A regular
stage line was extended from Boston
down through Hartford to New
York, the latter stage of the journey
requiring three days. Hartford was
great commercial cross roads.
Emigrants to the West through the
Mohawk Valley passed through, as
well as commerce to and from
Canada.
Joseph first furnished horses to
the stage line; then bought an in
terest; then opened up a stagecoach
inn, the Morgan House, with con-
comitant stables and warehouse
space. When the first railroad came
through he built a modern" hotel
the City Hotel
His insurance coup profits eased
the way for the entry of Joseph's s
son, Junius Spencer Morgan, grand
father of the present j. P, into the
business world. Successfully, Junius
was with the banking house of Nor
ris Ketcham, the drygoods firm of
Howe, Mathis & Co., and then be-
came partner in J. NJ Beeb e. Co.,
one Of the largest retail stores in
Boston.
Junius Morgan's mercantile busi-
ness developed-as did many in the
import export field of that day
into an international merchant
banking business. He went to Lon
don and became partner of George
Peabody & Co. Mr.. Peabody had
been a Baltimore merchant banker.
became leading international
banker.
Born in Small Brick House.
John Pierpont Morgan (the firsD
father of the present John Pierpont
Morgan, was born in a small red
brick house in Hartford, but the
family soon moved to large man.
sion, with 100 acres about it, Joseph S
wedding present to Junius. Johns
mother was the daughter of promi-
nent Boston clergyman, radical"
abolitionist and temperance advo-
cate and political pamphleteer.
Pierpont, nicknamed Pip" fished
IN nearby creeks from a skiff he
built himself, went to public gram
mar school, later to Switzerland and
Germany to finish his education
Then he went to work for his father
In London.
He shocked elderly clerks by quiet
" buying shipload of coffee on
speculation, raising the money by
his own efforts and netting a tidy
profit.
When the panic of 1857 made it
impossible for their New York
agents, Duncan, Sherman & Co., to
meet maturing obligations, the Nor
gan boldness showed itself again.
They got the British banking law
suspended, talked the Bank of Eng
land out of a 100000 advance,
and weathered the storm.
Conceives Bold Plan.
Pierpont came to New York to
keep an eye thereafter on this end
Of the family's banking business, and
with c. H. Dabney, Duncan, Sher-