Family Ties – Kilpatrick Part III

This should be the last is the 3rd entry in the Kilpatrick thread (see Part I, Part II, Part IV and Part V).

The fact that Philip Hicky Morgan is buried in Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Cemetery was bugging me, so last week I drove down to Lawrenceville to check it out.  I suspected that since Morgan’s (and Kilpatrick’s) granddaughter married into the wealthy Thaw family, he might be buried in the Thaw plot.  But that really didn’t make much sense, since Morgan died in New York City in 1900, long before the marriage (and subsequent divorce) of Consuelo Morgan and Benjamin Thaw, Jr.

To make a long story short, I found Philip in a Morgan family plot, in a different section of the cemetery than the Thaw plot.  Surprisingly, I also found Philip’s wife Beatrice, and his half brother James Morris Morgan.  In the same family plot was Algernon Sidney Morgan, one-time Colonel of the 63rd PA Volunteer Infantry.  Before and after the war, he was successful in the coke business.

Philip’s father Thomas Gibbes Morgan was born in New Jersey and grew up in Washington County, PA, south of Pittsburgh, in an area known then and today as Morganza.  This area was home to Col. George Morgan, who was the first to alert President Thomas Jefferson to the machinations of Aaron Burr, and his grandson George W. Morgan, who participated in the Texas war for independence and was also a Brigadier General in the Civil War, commanding the 13th Corps under Sherman during the Vicksburg campaign.  I’m not positive how Thomas is connected to the Washington County clan, but he married a local girl named Eliza Ann McKennan and moved with his brother Morris to Louisiana, where Philip was born.  After the death of Philip’s mother Thomas started a new family, which included Sarah and James Morris.

The connections between the Kilpatrick, Morgan, and Thaw families are more than simply blood and marriage.  All three families served in the US diplomatic corps, Kilpatrick and the Morgans achieved distinction in the military, and the Thaws and Pennsylvania Morgans made their fortunes in coke (for those of you not from Western PA, where we’re born with this knowledge, coke is a critical ingredient in the steel making process).  But precisely how these Louisiana Morgans wound up here in Pittsburgh after their deaths is a mystery to me.

I’ve taken this about as far as I wish to, at least as far as the Morgans and Thaws are concerned.  But I know there are genealogical junkies who read Bull Runnings, so if you find out any more let me know.  Here is some info on Washington, PA, and here is a link to the regimental history of the 63rd PA that includes a biographical sketch of A. S. Morgan.  Below are some images I recorded at Allegheny Cemetery of Morgan headstones (click on the thumbnail for larger image):

   

As a bonus, here is the marker to Harry K. Thaw in a different section: