Charles Stephen Morgan
Charles S. Morgan was born in 1799 near Morgantown, West Virginia (then Virginia). At the age of 20, he moved to Richmond after being elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. He was then elected to the Virginia Senate, an office he held for ten years. While a Senator, he participated with Monroe, Madison, and Marshall in the Virginia Reform Convention of 1829-1839. During his years as a public servant, Col. Morgan maintained an active legal practice in real estate law. Col. Morgan also served for 27 years as the Superintendent of Virginia Penitentiary. He is best remembered for instituting humane and practical penal reforms that won him widespread admiration and respect. His treatise on prison reform was noted for its “depth of thought, broad scope, and intellectual acumen at that time unknown in such work.”
His private correspondence shows that he invested extensively in Southside, beginning as early as 1822 when he pledged more than $40,000 to the efforts along the James River to improve and extend the canal system. From a wealthy and well-connected family, Col. Morgan maintained ties to banks and investors, particularly in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He was instrumental in securing financing for the development of transportation systems, real estate, and industries on Southside. His interest in suburban Manchester was, in part, out of concern that “vast internal improvements can be made that will have the most certain and evident tendency to increase our population and wealth.” In the late 1840s, Charles S. Morgan acquired 185 acres of “islands, rocks, shoals and unnavigable water” at the Falls above Forest Hill, with the intention of generating water power to support commercial and residential development. Anticipating the inauguration of the Richmond & Danville Railroad, Morgan’s vision for the Falls broadened.
In the 1850s, Colonel Morgan played a remarkably early and important role in Virginia’s preservation initiatives. He recruited like-minded Virginians to devise a preservation plan for the historic sites at Jamestown. His efforts led to statewide support for preservation, culminating in the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the landing at Jamestown in 1857. One off-shoot of Morgan’s initiative was the organization of the Jamestown Society.
Following his death in 1859, Morgan was eulogized at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for his philanthropy among prisoners, for his care of widows and children of soldiers in the Mexican War, and for his role in building the church. The rector said of Morgan “This is a man whose place cannot be filled.” His obituary in the Richmond paper extolled his “fine intellect, extensive information, genial temper, and kind heart.” Colonel Morgan is buried at Hollywood cemetery.
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