Generation 2. Griffin Morgan (1807-1895)
Matthew Hayden Morgan holding a painting of his father Griffin Morgan.
Griffin Morgan was a son of Daniel and Lucinda Morgan. He had 18 children with two wives. His first wife was Mary Bell Shepherd, daughter of Nimrod Shepherd and Gemima Smith. They had 14 children, starting with Andrew in 1830. He and Mary took also care of her parents in exchange for the rights to their property. After her parents died, there was a huge lawsuit between the heirs. After Mary died, Griffin married his widowed neighbor Helen Thomas Parks and they had 4 more children, the last of whom was born in 1877 (which means that my grandmother had a great-great-uncle who was only 7 years older than her.)
Griffin Morgan appears to have been an entrepreneur. There are probably many stories about him:
Griff [Morgan] owned 1000 acres of land. He was a horse trader during the Civil War, and he probably traded with sympathizers of both the North and South. Somebody did not like Griff Morgan. They believed he was guarding horses in one of the hollows nearby. So they went to kill him. Instead Griff Morgan had left his slave to guard the horses. In the darkness they killed the slave believing it was Griff. Later, he was buried beside the road. It happened during the days of the Civil War. Griffin Morgan died later and was interred in the Neal/Bruce Cemetery; however, his stone was destroyed when the road to the cemetery was constructed.
Another family story (unverified) says that Helen Thomas Morgan got so tired of everyone arguing about land that she burned the deeds to all of their property on the porch.
