Russell William Morgan, 1902-1981
Second cousin, once removed
In 1961, Russell William Morgan was elected mayor of Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. How proud his Welsh immigrant great-grandparents would have been. They came to America from Wales in 1841 on a sailing ship with their two young children. Their young boy would become Russell’s grandfather, William John Morgan, Sr., and their young girl would become my great-grandmother, Ann Morgan Davis Harned. My relation to Russell William Morgan is second cousin, once removed. The full story of the Morgan side of my family in America is covered in my 2018 book, Unsung But Not Forgotten; Family Personalities With Surnames Bassett, Beutler, Bogdon, Charles, Green, Harned, Lane, Morgan, Phelps, Phipps.
Russell William Morgan, born April 27, 1902, was five years old when his family moved to Westfield, New Jersey, from Brooklyn, New York, where the Morgans had been living since 1890. He, like his brothers Harold and Willard, attended Rutgers University. He graduated in the Class of 1924. In addition, he spent two years in New Jersey Law School. Like his father, William John Morgan, Jr., he worked for the telephone company.
Russell William Morgan (younger) in Rutgers University 1922 Yearbook
Russell William Morgan (older)
He married Muriel Dunham Pratt in 1929 and settled in Rahway, New Jersey, Muriel’s hometown. Their daughter, Carol Lynn Morgan (or simply, Lynn Morgan), was born in 1931. They lived in Goose Neck Point and Little Silver Point rentals during the Depression. Sometime before 1940, Russell moved his family to Little Silver, New Jersey, near the Atlantic Coast. In 1940, another child was born, a son, Richard Whildin Morgan. In 1946, the Morgans moved again, this time to the coastal town of Atlantic Highlands, allowing both his children to attend Atlantic Highlands High School. Carol Lynn graduated in 1948, Richard in 1958.
Russell’s son, Richard, entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania starting in the fall of 1960. Also in 1960, his daughter, Carol Lynn, who had attended Oberlin College in Ohio for one year and since 1952 had been working for the telephone company, married attorney John Glidden Houser (1928-2007) in City Hall in Manhattan, New York City. John graduated from both Harvard and Harvard Law School. They lived for a short while in Manhattan, Brooklyn Heights, and Mount Vernon, New York, before settling more permanently in nearby Tuckahoe. They had three children. John David Houser was born in 1961. A girl, Leslie Dunham Houser, was born in 1963. Ann/Morgan Glidden “Phereba” Houser was born in 1971. Leslie Houser married and divorced a man named Dinozzi and had two children: Joseph Francis Dinozzi, born October 1984, and Janet Lindsey Dinozzi, born October 1994. In 2000, Carol Lynn, John and their son, John David, moved to Carboro, North Carolina, a town close to Chapel Hill. Carol Lynn’s husband, John, passed away in 2007. Today, Carol Lynn still lives in Carboro.
Richard Whildin Morgan
Back in 1960, with Richard in college and Carol Lynn married, Russell and Muriel became empty nesters. Russell then turned his attention to local politics, as his father, William John Morgan, Jr., had done in Westfield in the 1930s. However, Russell was much more successful at this than his father. As early as 1958, he began serving on the Atlantic Highlands Town Council. The town then had a population of roughly 4300 people. In 1961, he was elected mayor of Atlantic Highlands. He served until the end of 1965. Although he did not run for mayor again, he continued to find a way to serve his community in some capacity.
Russell died in July 1981. His wife, Muriel, passed away on March 21, 1990. They are both buried in Hazel Wood Cemetery in Rahway, New Jersey (Union County).
Russell and Muriel’s Gravestone: Hazel Wood Cemetery, Rahway, New Jersey