Daniel D. Morgan, a veteran realtor of Mohawk and a former postmaster of that progressive and enterprising village, is a member of one of the real old families of that section of the valley, the Morgans having been here since settlement days. He was born in Mohawk, on June 27, 1847, and is a son of Samuel and Margaret (Dygert) Morgan, the latter of whom was born in the neighboring village of Ilion, April 20, 1820, and died in Mohawk, on December 19, 1888. She was a daughter of Daniel and Margaret (Myers) Dygert, the latter of whom was born in Ilion, daughter of one of the pioneers of that settlement. Daniel Dygert also was born in Ilion, his parents having been among the early settlers there, and he became a well-to-do merchant as well as a prominent figure in the civic life of that community. In 1863 he rendered service as a member of the general assembly of the state of New York. Samuel Morgan was born in Ilion, in the year 1814, and was a son of Selden Morgan, a Canadian of Welsh descent, who became one of the early landowners in the Ilion district, his farm having covered the ground now occupied by a part of the great manufacturing plant of the Remington Arms Company there. Samuel Morgan early became interested in commercial pursuits, with particular reference to the lake and river trade, and at the age of eighteen years was in charge of a packet boat engaged in local trade. He later became a commission merchant at Buffalo and also owned a number of boats engaged in the trade between Buffalo and New York, plying the waters of the old Erie canal and the Hudson river, and he continued active in business until his death in Mohawk, on October 10, 1869.
Reared in Mohawk, with part of his youth spent in Buffalo and Ilion, Daniel D. Morgan completed his schooling in the old Holbrook Military Academy and early became associated with his father's operations as a commission merchant of Buffalo and also took an active part in his father's business in the river trade, continuing thus until 1873, about four years after his father's death, when he closed out that business and returned to Mohawk, engaging there and at Ilion in the real estate business, his time being required here also in the administration of his father's estate, and he ever since has been carrying on his real estate business, with residence in Mohawk. Mr. Morgan is a democrat and has for years been regarded as one of the leaders of that party in his section. During both the Cleveland administrations he served as postmaster of Mohawk and has in other ways contributed of his time and energies to the public service.
On September 9, 1874, in Ilion, Daniel D. Morgan was united in marriage to Miss Emma Amelia Steber and to that union have been born four children: Marie Josephine; Samuel, deceased; Johnson; and Daniel Dygert, who died at the age of two years. Samuel Morgan was graduated from the Mohawk high school and at the time of his death was serving as a statistician in the ordnance department of the United States army, stationed at Springfield, Massachusetts. Formerly, and for a number of years he was associated with the operations of the New York Telephone Company and while thus connected secured the right of way for that company's lines through the state. Marie Josephine Morgan was married on October 15, 1905, to Lawrence Colfax Finch of Indiana, now deceased, and they became parents of two children, Daniel Morgan and Mary Elizabeth Finch. Mrs. Finch is now engaged in newspaper work, writing for the Utica Observer-Dispatch under the nom de plume of "Betty Blair", creating in this newspaper a department that has attained much popularity. She was graduated from the Ilion high school and from the Boston School of Expression and also took a special course in New York city under Dr. Mackey. Johnson Morgan, Mr. Morgan's only surviving son, was graduated from the Mohawk high school and from the Utica Business College and spent two years in extending his studies at the University of Indiana. When this country took a hand in the World war in the spring of 1917 he volunteered his services in behalf of the army and was commissioned a captain in the ordnance department, with which he served until after the close of the war and is now a major in the Officers Reserve Corps. He is connected with the operations of the Remington Cash Register Company, Incorporated, at Ilion. On August 30, 1913, Johnson Morgan was married to Genevieve Penny of Mohawk, and he and his wife have two children: Johnson, Jr., born August 23, 1914; and George Daniel, born October 21, 1922.
Mrs. Emma A. Steber Morgan was born in Ilion on November 18, 1852, and is a daughter of Jean Michel and Marie Françoise (Bucher) Steber, Alsatians, who came to this country in the late '40s of the past century and located at Ilion, where they spent the remainder of their lives and where Mr. Steber, an expert machinist, was for years employed in the plant of E. Remington & Sons. During his period of service in the French army, as a young man, he had served as a member of the guard of honor which acted as an escort to the body of Napoleon when it was brought back to Paris from St. Helena. He and his wife had one child, a daughter, Marie, when they came to this country and four other children were born to them at Ilion, those besides Mrs. Morgan being: Josephine, Frank J. C., and Edith. Mrs. Morgan was graduated from the Ilion high school and from the Normal School at Oswego and then served for some time prior to her marriage as a preceptress in the Ilion high school. She is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church at Mohawk and is affiliated with the Ilion Travelers Club. She is one of the charter members of the Old Ladies Home Association of Herkimer county, was the first secretary of that useful body, and is now an honorary member of the board of managers of the association, in the affairs of which she has from the time of its organization taken a very earnest interest.