Morgan was born in Clifton, Staten Island on September 24, 1860 and was named after his maternal grandfather. He was a son of "eminent banker" David Pierce Morgan and Caroline Morgan. Among his siblings was Clara Hewitt Morgan, David Percy Morgan, Alice Morgan, and Lewis Henry Morgan. His parents moved to Paris in 1879 and lived there until 1883 before returning to the United States and living in Washington, D.C. until his death in 1886. His paternal grandparents were Amos Morgan and Betsy Morgan. Through his sister Alice, he was uncle to Mildred, Countess of Gosford, the wife of Archibald Acheson, 5th Earl of Gosford. His maternal grandparents were William Fellowes and Caroline Fellowes, who lived in Louisville, Kentucky but moved north to Staten Island. His maternal uncle, Cornelius Fellowes, was the second husband of Caroline Suydam Whitney. After completing preparatory studies at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, he spent some time in England playing rugby. When he returned to the U.S., he attended Columbia University, where he graduated in 1880, followed four years later from the Columbia School of Mines. While at Columbia, he became friends with future governor of New York and President of the United StatesTheodore Roosevelt. In the election of 1883, when 24 year old Roosevelt was running for reelection to the New York Assembly, Roosevelt asked Morgan to supervise a polling place at 733 7th Avenue to prevent voter fraud. He called a "doubtful district."
Career
After graduating from Columbia, he began working for the brokerage firm of Leavitt & Davis, where he remained until 1886 when he formed William Fellowes Morgan & Co., which dissolved two years later. After leaving the brokerage business, Morgan became a pioneer the use of refrigeration in warehouses which made him wealthy. In 1887, he founded the Brooklyn Bridge Freezing and Cold Storage Company, located at Arch No. 11 of the Brooklyn Bridge, and served as its president. He was a director of the Merchants Refrigeration Company, the Tri-State Land Company, the Chemical Bank and Trust Company, and the Citizens' Central National Bank of New York. He also served as president of the New York Merchants Association from 1915 to 1922. For many years, he lived in Short Hills, New Jersey, where he was involved in civic affairs and served as chairman of the Township Committee and as president of the Board of Education. From 1906 to 1908, he served in the lower house of the New Jersey Assembly. In politics, Morgan was a Progressive, which was popularly nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party" per its leader Theodore Roosevelt.
On January 22, 1885, he was married to the tennis and golf player Emma Leavitt at St. Thomas Church in New York. Emma was a daughter of Henry Sheldon Leavitt and Martha Ann Leavitt. Together, they were the parents of three children:
Beatrice Morgan, who married Frederic Pruyn, son of Robert C. Pruyn, in 1907. They divorced and in 1936, she married David Marvin Goodrich, chairman of the board of B. F. Goodrich Company and son of its founder, Benjamin Goodrich. At the time of their wedding, Goodrich had recently divorced his first wife, Ruth Pruyn, the sister of Beatrice's first husband.
Pauline "Polly" Morgan, who married Cleveland Earl Dodge, a son of Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, in 1919.
Morgan died on May 2, 1943 at 510 Park Avenue, his residence in Manhattan. After a funeral at St. George's Church in Stuyvesant Square, he was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. His widow died in December 1956.
