Please take this information with a grain of salt because we now know that at least part of this info is incorrect.
"It is now considerably more than a century since Mark Morgan, belonging to a Baptist family of Welsh extraction, came into North Carolina from Pennsylvania with wife and children and took up from the government a tract of land in Orange County. (Mark Morgan came to Onslow Co., NC from Essex Co., VA with his mother and brothers in ca 1735. Mark Morgan received a Granville grant in 1744 in Bladen Co., NC. Perhaps his father came from PA. No one knows about the ancestry of John Morgan father of Mark Morgan).
It was covered with a forest primeval on which as yet no axe had ever been lifted, and lay two miles south of the promontory known as Chapel Hill.
The Morgans came in among the last of that tide of immigration, Welsh, Scotch and Scotch-Irish which had been steadily flowing into the State since the days of Gabriel Johnston. (Mark Morgans family actually came before or when Gabriel Johnson was governor.) They camped with their wagons on the rich low grounds of the only considerable stream flowing at the foot of Chapel Hill, now known as "Morgans Creek;" an till a log cabin could be built from the forest around, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan for their habitation used the hollow trunk of an enormous sycamore tree, ten to twelve feet in diameter. It was one of many then flourishing on the banks of the creek. I heard an elderly man say many years ago in his boyhood he had seen the stump of one of them trees of fully that size.
The first generation or two of Morgans lived on the west side of the creek where some of the bricks used in the foundation of the last house built there may yet be found, and there the first family graveyard stand still undisturbed. The situation was unhealthy, and they moved across and higher up, and in the yard of the present residence is a mound marking the foundation of the first house built there.
Mark Morgan was on the patriotic side in the Revolutionary struggle, and saw some active service in a volunteer company. He had the title of "Colonel," afterwards, whether in the militia or by the courtesy of his neighbors I do not know. He was an active man intelligent for his day and prominent in local affairs and when a site for the proposed State University was sought by committee empowered to select it in the year 1792, he was one of eight to ten farmers of the neighborhood whose liberality in donating their lands for purpose, determined its location at Chapel Hill.
The generosity of these plain men and their intelligent appreciation of the value of education, Chapel Hill owes its existence."
Mark Morgan owned approximately 27,000 acres of land in early Orange and Chatham Counties, NC. His original land grant was for 500 acres and was situated between the Haw River and Newhope Creek about 15 miles above where the Haw River (where my Charles Morgan had a ferry and mill)and the Newhope Creek dump into the Cape Fear River, which has been dammed to form the B. Everett Jordon Lake.
Mark Morgan had more children. According to an article from a North Carolina newspaper, "Mark Morgan was one of the University's original donors. Through instructions to his sons, Solomon and John he gave 107 acres of the tract on which the main campus was to be built, beginning in 1793 with Old East Dormitory."
"Morgan's son Solomon stayed close to the land, and, in 1792 was one of ten landowners who gave together more than a thousand forested acres to establish the University of North Carolina and the little town of Chapel Hill." - The Daily Tar Heel, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, "Nature Preserve is living laboratory; history survives in 800 wild acres, Parks Helms, Nov. 18, 1977, page 12.
The graves of Solomon Morgan and his wife Ann were moved to the Morgan and Mason Family Cemetery in the early 1970s. The relocated graves of the Morgans are enclosed by a modern iron fence. Solomon's memorial is here.
"It is now considerably more than a century since Mark Morgan, belonging to a Baptist family of Welsh extraction, came into North Carolina from Pennsylvania with wife and children and took up from the government a tract of land in Orange County. (Mark Morgan came to Onslow Co., NC from Essex Co., VA with his mother and brothers in ca 1735. Mark Morgan received a Granville grant in 1744 in Bladen Co., NC. Perhaps his father came from PA. No one knows about the ancestry of John Morgan father of Mark Morgan).
It was covered with a forest primeval on which as yet no axe had ever been lifted, and lay two miles south of the promontory known as Chapel Hill.
The Morgans came in among the last of that tide of immigration, Welsh, Scotch and Scotch-Irish which had been steadily flowing into the State since the days of Gabriel Johnston. (Mark Morgans family actually came before or when Gabriel Johnson was governor.) They camped with their wagons on the rich low grounds of the only considerable stream flowing at the foot of Chapel Hill, now known as "Morgans Creek;" an till a log cabin could be built from the forest around, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan for their habitation used the hollow trunk of an enormous sycamore tree, ten to twelve feet in diameter. It was one of many then flourishing on the banks of the creek. I heard an elderly man say many years ago in his boyhood he had seen the stump of one of them trees of fully that size.
The first generation or two of Morgans lived on the west side of the creek where some of the bricks used in the foundation of the last house built there may yet be found, and there the first family graveyard stand still undisturbed. The situation was unhealthy, and they moved across and higher up, and in the yard of the present residence is a mound marking the foundation of the first house built there.
Mark Morgan was on the patriotic side in the Revolutionary struggle, and saw some active service in a volunteer company. He had the title of "Colonel," afterwards, whether in the militia or by the courtesy of his neighbors I do not know. He was an active man intelligent for his day and prominent in local affairs and when a site for the proposed State University was sought by committee empowered to select it in the year 1792, he was one of eight to ten farmers of the neighborhood whose liberality in donating their lands for purpose, determined its location at Chapel Hill.
The generosity of these plain men and their intelligent appreciation of the value of education, Chapel Hill owes its existence."
Mark Morgan owned approximately 27,000 acres of land in early Orange and Chatham Counties, NC. His original land grant was for 500 acres and was situated between the Haw River and Newhope Creek about 15 miles above where the Haw River (where my Charles Morgan had a ferry and mill)and the Newhope Creek dump into the Cape Fear River, which has been dammed to form the B. Everett Jordon Lake.
Mark Morgan had more children. According to an article from a North Carolina newspaper, "Mark Morgan was one of the University's original donors. Through instructions to his sons, Solomon and John he gave 107 acres of the tract on which the main campus was to be built, beginning in 1793 with Old East Dormitory."
"Morgan's son Solomon stayed close to the land, and, in 1792 was one of ten landowners who gave together more than a thousand forested acres to establish the University of North Carolina and the little town of Chapel Hill." - The Daily Tar Heel, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, "Nature Preserve is living laboratory; history survives in 800 wild acres, Parks Helms, Nov. 18, 1977, page 12.
The graves of Solomon Morgan and his wife Ann were moved to the Morgan and Mason Family Cemetery in the early 1970s. The relocated graves of the Morgans are enclosed by a modern iron fence. Solomon's memorial is here.
Please take this information with a grain of salt because we now know that at least part of this info is incorrect.
"It is now considerably more than a century since Mark Morgan, belonging to a Baptist family of Welsh extraction, came into North Carolina from Pennsylvania with wife and children and took up from the government a tract of land in Orange County. (Mark Morgan came to Onslow Co., NC from Essex Co., VA with his mother and brothers in ca 1735. Mark Morgan received a Granville grant in 1744 in Bladen Co., NC. Perhaps his father came from PA. No one knows about the ancestry of John Morgan father of Mark Morgan).
It was covered with a forest primeval on which as yet no axe had ever been lifted, and lay two miles south of the promontory known as Chapel Hill.
The Morgans came in among the last of that tide of immigration, Welsh, Scotch and Scotch-Irish which had been steadily flowing into the State since the days of Gabriel Johnston. (Mark Morgans family actually came before or when Gabriel Johnson was governor.) They camped with their wagons on the rich low grounds of the only considerable stream flowing at the foot of Chapel Hill, now known as "Morgans Creek;" an till a log cabin could be built from the forest around, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan for their habitation used the hollow trunk of an enormous sycamore tree, ten to twelve feet in diameter. It was one of many then flourishing on the banks of the creek. I heard an elderly man say many years ago in his boyhood he had seen the stump of one of them trees of fully that size.
The first generation or two of Morgans lived on the west side of the creek where some of the bricks used in the foundation of the last house built there may yet be found, and there the first family graveyard stand still undisturbed. The situation was unhealthy, and they moved across and higher up, and in the yard of the present residence is a mound marking the foundation of the first house built there.
Mark Morgan was on the patriotic side in the Revolutionary struggle, and saw some active service in a volunteer company. He had the title of "Colonel," afterwards, whether in the militia or by the courtesy of his neighbors I do not know. He was an active man intelligent for his day and prominent in local affairs and when a site for the proposed State University was sought by committee empowered to select it in the year 1792, he was one of eight to ten farmers of the neighborhood whose liberality in donating their lands for purpose, determined its location at Chapel Hill.
The generosity of these plain men and their intelligent appreciation of the value of education, Chapel Hill owes its existence."
Mark Morgan owned approximately 27,000 acres of land in early Orange and Chatham Counties, NC. His original land grant was for 500 acres and was situated between the Haw River and Newhope Creek about 15 miles above where the Haw River (where my Charles Morgan had a ferry and mill)and the Newhope Creek dump into the Cape Fear River, which has been dammed to form the B. Everett Jordon Lake.
Mark Morgan had more children. According to an article from a North Carolina newspaper, "Mark Morgan was one of the University's original donors. Through instructions to his sons, Solomon and John he gave 107 acres of the tract on which the main campus was to be built, beginning in 1793 with Old East Dormitory."
"Morgan's son Solomon stayed close to the land, and, in 1792 was one of ten landowners who gave together more than a thousand forested acres to establish the University of North Carolina and the little town of Chapel Hill." - The Daily Tar Heel, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, "Nature Preserve is living laboratory; history survives in 800 wild acres, Parks Helms, Nov. 18, 1977, page 12.
The graves of Solomon Morgan and his wife Ann were moved to the Morgan and Mason Family Cemetery in the early 1970s. The relocated graves of the Morgans are enclosed by a modern iron fence. Solomon's memorial is here.
"It is now considerably more than a century since Mark Morgan, belonging to a Baptist family of Welsh extraction, came into North Carolina from Pennsylvania with wife and children and took up from the government a tract of land in Orange County. (Mark Morgan came to Onslow Co., NC from Essex Co., VA with his mother and brothers in ca 1735. Mark Morgan received a Granville grant in 1744 in Bladen Co., NC. Perhaps his father came from PA. No one knows about the ancestry of John Morgan father of Mark Morgan).
It was covered with a forest primeval on which as yet no axe had ever been lifted, and lay two miles south of the promontory known as Chapel Hill.
The Morgans came in among the last of that tide of immigration, Welsh, Scotch and Scotch-Irish which had been steadily flowing into the State since the days of Gabriel Johnston. (Mark Morgans family actually came before or when Gabriel Johnson was governor.) They camped with their wagons on the rich low grounds of the only considerable stream flowing at the foot of Chapel Hill, now known as "Morgans Creek;" an till a log cabin could be built from the forest around, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan for their habitation used the hollow trunk of an enormous sycamore tree, ten to twelve feet in diameter. It was one of many then flourishing on the banks of the creek. I heard an elderly man say many years ago in his boyhood he had seen the stump of one of them trees of fully that size.
The first generation or two of Morgans lived on the west side of the creek where some of the bricks used in the foundation of the last house built there may yet be found, and there the first family graveyard stand still undisturbed. The situation was unhealthy, and they moved across and higher up, and in the yard of the present residence is a mound marking the foundation of the first house built there.
Mark Morgan was on the patriotic side in the Revolutionary struggle, and saw some active service in a volunteer company. He had the title of "Colonel," afterwards, whether in the militia or by the courtesy of his neighbors I do not know. He was an active man intelligent for his day and prominent in local affairs and when a site for the proposed State University was sought by committee empowered to select it in the year 1792, he was one of eight to ten farmers of the neighborhood whose liberality in donating their lands for purpose, determined its location at Chapel Hill.
The generosity of these plain men and their intelligent appreciation of the value of education, Chapel Hill owes its existence."
Mark Morgan owned approximately 27,000 acres of land in early Orange and Chatham Counties, NC. His original land grant was for 500 acres and was situated between the Haw River and Newhope Creek about 15 miles above where the Haw River (where my Charles Morgan had a ferry and mill)and the Newhope Creek dump into the Cape Fear River, which has been dammed to form the B. Everett Jordon Lake.
Mark Morgan had more children. According to an article from a North Carolina newspaper, "Mark Morgan was one of the University's original donors. Through instructions to his sons, Solomon and John he gave 107 acres of the tract on which the main campus was to be built, beginning in 1793 with Old East Dormitory."
"Morgan's son Solomon stayed close to the land, and, in 1792 was one of ten landowners who gave together more than a thousand forested acres to establish the University of North Carolina and the little town of Chapel Hill." - The Daily Tar Heel, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, "Nature Preserve is living laboratory; history survives in 800 wild acres, Parks Helms, Nov. 18, 1977, page 12.
The graves of Solomon Morgan and his wife Ann were moved to the Morgan and Mason Family Cemetery in the early 1970s. The relocated graves of the Morgans are enclosed by a modern iron fence. Solomon's memorial is here.
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