Thomas Morgan is the son of Hannah Davies and Thomas Morgan.

He married Ann Ollen Watkins April 17, 1841 in Avenbury Parish Church in Bronyard, Bedfordshire, England. He married second Nancy Jane Radford September 25, 1871 in the Endowment House, In Salt Lake City, Utah. He also married Elizabeth Dutson and Susan Wilbur Byington.

Thomas and Ann (Nancy) Ollen Watkins had eight children: Edward (Ted) Morgan, Elizabeth (Betsy) Morgan, Eliza Morgan Morrison, Mary Ann Morgan, Priscilla Morgan, William Thomas Morgan, James John Morgan and Everal Hannah Morgan.

Thomas and Nancy Jane had ten children: Francis Daniel (Frank) Ryset (from her first husband), John Thomas Morgan, Estella Morgan, Anna Jane Morgan, Martha Veletta Morgan, Joseph Charles Morgan, James Richard Morgan, Alice Morgan, Olive Morgan and Lydia Almeda Morgan.

Thomas Morgan joined the Mormon Church in September 1851 and Ann in February 1852, probably when they were living in Bishops Frome, England. A decision to join with the Mormons was not one taken lightly. On one hand it was typically met with some level of scorn or ostracism from friends and relatives and on the other hand it meant leaving home for a long and arduous trip to the frontier of America. Poor families such as the Morgans could not make such a trip without the help of the Mormon Church and perhaps others. So when it came time for Thomas to apply for passage on a ship to America, he made his application to Mormon Church authorities in England. In February of 1855 he and his family were granted space on the ship Siddons, chartered by the Church especially for Mormon emigrants. To help secure this passage he paid an initial small deposit of £4/0/0 (four pounds no shillings, no pence) for "steerage" (third class) down in the lower deck of the ship. This amount would have been equal to several days of work as a farm laborer in England at that time. He would owe an additional £10/0/0 at some time in the future. He probably paid this debt in the form of labor after reaching Utah.

On February 27, 1855, they boarded the Siddons in Liverpool, England, and set sail for Philadelphia, arriving there on 21 April 1855. All members of the family were listed except for their oldest son Edward. Edward had already emigrated to Utah with his uncle Joseph Morgan in 1853. He and uncle Joe boarded the ship Elvira Owen in Liverpool on 15 February and arrived in New Orleans March 31, 1853. They crossed the plains together, Edward being only nine at the time, in a wagon train led by Jacob Secrist.

The Morgans' cheaper "steerage" tickets were for the deck down below those of the second and first-class passengers. This was not a comfortable cruise. On the voyage taken by the Morgans, it took the Siddons nearly two months to cross from Liverpool to Philadelphia because of "contrary winds." U. S. Customs listed the Thomas Morgan family as passengers from the Siddons who disembarked there and every family member, even baby Priscilla, declared two trunks of goods each.

The first home in Utah for the Thomas and Ann Morgan family was in the town of Kaysville, located about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City on a somewhat narrow strip of good farming land between the Great Salt Lake and the Wasatch Mountains. Thomas' young son Edward and Thomas' brother Joseph, were already settled in Kaysville two years before Thomas and Ann's family arrived. Thirteen year old son Edward must have been happy to see his family again. Kaysville was a frontier Mormon settlement founded in 1850. After more than a year there, Thomas and Ann had their first Utah-born child: William Thomas, born in Kaysville, 26 December 1856.


Thomas Morgan participated in the "Echo Canyon War in 1857. Thomas Morgan is identified as a founder of both Santaquin and Goshen, which are only about seven miles apart. He first appears in a list of settlers arriving in 1856 in what is Santaquin to help build a fort and settlement there, then called Summit. Because of Indian hostilities at that time the settlers were required to build their homes close together and to construct a wall around the whole to form a fort. While living in Goshen Thomas and Ann had their second Utah-born child, James John, born 1 Feb 1860; and their third, Everal Hannah, born 27 June 1862.

In 1866 the Morgan family made another move, this time to the newly founded settlement of Deseret in Millard County, central Utah. Brigham Young ordered the Mormon settlers of Deseret to organize a militia to protect themselves from the Indians. Despite threats from the Indians, a peace conference was arranged with Black Hawk and his 72 painted warriors. To prepare for their defense, Brigham Young ordered the men of Deseret to build a fort. After a site was selected, work on the fort began in June 1866. John Whitlock Radford was the construction supervisor of the fort which involved a crew of 98 men.

Pioneers also built ditches. Thomas Morgan is credited with digging 24 feet of an irrigation ditch and John Whitlock Radford 27 feet and so on.

In 1868, after the main dam at Deseret broke for the fourth time, settlers there began looking for a new place to live. In fact, by the end of 1870 Deseret had been completely abandoned and left as a ghost town. By 1866 or 1867 Thomas Morgan and his friend John Whitlock Radford were among a few who began grazing cattle during the summer in the Oak Creek Canyon area located about 20 miles northeast of Deseret.

Most of the former residents of Deseret moved together to Oak Creek and its new town, Oak City. In the spring of 1872 original Oak City resident Thomas Morgan surveyed another dam and ditch site in the same area on the Sevier River about 12 miles north of Oak City. Work immediately began on both the new dam and ditch by people, mostly from Oak City, who eventually were to become residents of yet another pioneer community; this one was later called Leamington, after a town by that name in England. The ditch, when finally finished, differed from previous ditches in that its intake waters were far enough upstream on the Sevier River that it did not need a dam. It is still in use today and is known as the Morgan Ditch.
Hereafter, Thomas Morgan found other opportunities to survey for ditches. He was paid to witch for water.
The Morgan adobe house remains on its original site on what is now the property of the Finlinson family, whose ancestor George Finlinson bought it from Tom Morgan in 1888. The current owner uses the old house for his tool shed. It is a one-and-a-half story, two-room house which had a lean-to kitchen on the back (north) side. The lean-to (no longer there) contained a small staircase that led to the upper half-story bedroom area. The house, with front door to the south, measures about 21 feet by 17 feet. With reference to the USGS topographic map of Leamington, Thomas Morgan's adobe house and land are in the NE quarter of the NE quarter of Section 10, Township 15 South, Range 4 West. The Morgan Ditch runs to the west, traversing his property just a few feet north of the adobe house.
It was while living in Deseret and Oak City that the Morgans and Radfords became close associates. From the mid-1860s into the 1890s members of these two large families joined in several marriages.

Poplar was the first Idaho home of the Thomas and Nancy Jane Morgan family. Four years after settling there, Ann Ollen Watkins Morgan died in Poplar on 19 August 1895 at the age of 73. Her death left Thomas with his wife Nancy Jane and her family. But in May 1900 Nancy Jane at age 53 died in Poplar of "nervous prostration." By that time four of her five surviving children had reached adulthood. Her youngest, Lydia Almeda, was 12 years old when her mother died. It is probable that Lydia Almeda moved to her sister Martha's house after Nancy Jane's death. In October 1906 the 85-year-old Thomas married 66-year-old widow Susan Byington Wilbur. Her Byington family were early pioneers of Poplar, as well as her husband's family the Wilburs.

Thomas came to the Snake River Valley in 1891 and when he was 75 years old he purchased the Upper Ferry (1906), the first ferry across the South Fork of the Snake River near Heise Hot Springs, and successfully operated it personally for five years. He ran it with a cable by hand. He lived during that time in a one room house on the river bank. Night or day when a call would come he would hasten from his home to the ferry to get the party actross the river. One time a group of 8 desperadoes came and forced him at gun point to ferry them across the river. It was after that he decided to sell his ferry business saying, 'anytime I can't handle a group of desperadoes, it's time for me to sell.

-Compiled from Thomas Morgan history

* John Whitlock Radford

Children not listed below: Francis Daniel (Frank) Ryset (from her first husband), Estella Morgan, Anna Jane Morgan, James Richard Morgan, Alice Morgan, Olive Morgan and Lydia Almeda Morgan.