Reliving history All in the family Reece Jones Morgan and his family moved from Kentucky to Prairie Creek in 1829, beginning a long line of Morgans in the Wabash Valley who on Monday held their 100th-anniversary reunion By Tammy Ayer Tribune-Star Early Thursday afternoon, Nathan Pence practiced his lines and rolled his Rs in hopes of effecting a brogue. Nearby, 86-year-old Joe Morgan chatted with others at the head table, and a grinning baby crawled across the floor. Once again, members of the Morgan family gathered for their annual Thanksgiving reunion dinner, this time at the U.S. Penitentiary training center on an unusually warm and sunny November day. This year, though, it had been 100 years since family members started the annual holiday event: 100 years since Ogle Morgan shot a wild goose and his father, Homer Cassius Morgan, invited the entire family over for a feast. Thus, the necessity for the brogue. As he glanced at the piece of paper with his lines and rolled his Rs, Pence prepared for his role in a skit about the Morgan family's history in Vigo County since 1829, a history that began with Reece Morgan whom Pence portrayed when he emigrated from Wales to Virginia. Son's early successes Relatives are unsure when Reece Morgan made that trip, but they know he had a son named Reece Jones Morgan, who was born in 1773 in Virginia or Kentucky. That son married in 1801 in Kentucky, making the move to Indiana in 1829 because land in Indiana was cheap. He came up the Wabash River from Kentucky to Prairie Creek . . . on a raft, noted 74-year-old Ralph Morgan of Prairie Creek. They decided it looked pretty good there, so they turned into Prairie Creek. That decision proved a good one for Reece Jones Morgan, his wife Lucretia and eight children. One son, Valentine Morgan, enjoyed even greater success as a farmer and trader and lawyer, building a grand, two-story mansion with big pillars and a spiral staircase about two miles north of Prairie Creek. The house passed out of the family when Valetine's widow, Frances Ann Thompson Morgan, discovered her husband's heavy debt from extensive land purchases and sold it to clear the debt. The house eventually burned. Valentine Morgan's oldest son, Cassius Homer Morgan, later built his own house, which is still standing. Born in 1845, he attended Merom Union Christian College for one term, taught in a local school, farmed, settled disagreements between neighbors thanks to his law education and served one term as a Republican in the state House of Representatives, in 1897. He also ran a general store in Prairie Creek, built a kiln to make clay drain tiles and bricks and taught his second wife, Lida, how to sign her name, because she had only three months of school. Examining mementos Family members learned all that and more during the skit Thursday and later during a tour of Morgan landmarks. They could also admire the pearl buttons from Lida Morgans wedding dress, the carved amber buttons from her second-day dress and a special glass float cup used at her reception. Nearby sat a deep, octagon-shaped glass dish the salt box brought from Wales by Reece Morgan. The chipped and scratched dish, decorated simply on the bottom, occupies a place of honor in the china cabinet of Mary Morgan of Indianapolis, 84, the family historian and one of several at the head table. When the annual Thanksgiving reunion dinner began, Homer Morgan hosted it until 1924, the year his wife died, and 1925 two years the dinner didn't happen. After that break, family members began meeting in other homes in 1926, outgrowing those homes around 1930 and then meeting in the Prairie Creek Eastern Star hall and the Saddle Club in 1972. They met in homes for several years after that, always enjoying euchre, checkers or another game. This year, 67 people attended, some from as far as Florida and California. This is my 57th one, said Mary K. Morgan Goodson, 79, of Cypress, Calif. There were a couple in there where the weather kept us in, and one where we had the flu. And then there was the one in 1945 where she had to leave her husband, Frank, in Blackstone, Va., after he was drafted. She caught a train and arrived in Terre Haute before noon on Thanksgiving. The couple married in 1942; she had attended the year before. When you're invited, its serious. You're expected to be a member of the family, said Morgan, who met her husband at 4-H camp in Jasonville when he was an ag teacher and she was a 4-H leader. Most dressed up for the event, with some even in suits; Ralph Morgan noted that when he was a child, everyone wore their Sunday best. Some even received new suits just for the gathering. You may not stay clean very long, but you started that way, he said. Mary Goodson smiled as she looked around the room of people, away from a display of family pictures, and commented on the Morgan Thanksgiving tradition. I think its remarkable. I think the loyalty of those kids in spite of their differences is what kept it alive, she said. Published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star 27 Nov 1998. Found at: http://www.egroups.com/archives.cgi/PrairieCreek message 49. From: Kim Holly Date: Mon Oct 18, 1999 9:53am Subject: FW: Morgan Also available on the Tribune-Star WWW site.