PIERPONT MORGAN

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 80, 20 May 1902, Page 5

PIERPONT MORGAN

The doings of the great shipping combiue has once more given worldwide prominence to the name of Mr Pierpont Morgan, the American millionaire. Mi- Morgan is a New Englander by birth and ancestry. His mother, fi-om whom he gets his middle name was Miss Juliet, daughter of the Rev John Pierpont, the author of the stirring little poem on the appeal supposed to have been made by Warren to his men at the battle of Bunker Hill, which begins “Stand! The ground’s your own, my braves.” Joseph Morgan, Mr Morgan’s grandtook par’t in the Revolution. w " TtVs a farmer and tavern-keeper at Hartford, he amassed what was then counted as a good fortune. His lands occupied a large part of Asylum Hill, and in time became quite valuable. This property was left to his son Junius, John Pierpont Morgan’s father, who by eneigy and natural aptitude for business, first as a dry goods merchant and then as the associate of George Peabody, the great banker, multiplied it into millions, and laid part of the foundation for the vast fortune that has been gathered by his son. John Pierpont Morgan was born inHartford, Conn., where he attended school until he was 14, when his father moved to Boston. These he became a student at the celebrated English High School, and on his graduation therefrom at the age of 18 spent two years at the Univertity of Gottingen, Germany. At the age of twenty-one he entered the banking-house of Duncan, Sherman, and Co., New York. From the outset of his career Mr Morgan paid special attention to the “foreign exchange” department of the banking business, and having in time thor r oughly mastered it was in a position of advantage in securing a large share of the enormous business in that line necessitated by America’s huge and ever-growing import and export trade. In 1860 John Pierpont Morgan became the American agent for George Peabody and Co., London ; fmr years later he organised the firm of Dabney, Morgan, and Co., and in 1871 became connected with the wealthy Drexels, of Philadelphia, in the firm of Drexel, Morgan and Co Mr Morgan’s fathei died in 1890, leaving him a f »rtune of some £2, 000,000, and the sole control of the London house of J. S. Morgan and Co., and the Paris house of Morgan, Harjes, and Co., with all their world-wide connections. In 1895 the firm of Drexel, Morgan and Co. became J. P. M xrgan and Co., which is J. Pierpont Morgan and 11 others whom he has associated with him, not for their financial strength, but for their assistance as lieutenants in handling the vast amount of business that has been drawn to the house, which now, though a private concern, is one of the > most po.verful financial factors in the \ business of the world.