Miles Morgan, a constable and selectman of Springfield, Mass.., was honored in 1882 by the erection of a statue in Court Square by Jonathan Scott Hartley. The photo below was taken in 1908.
Miles Morgan
He was an early settler of the town before it even became Springfield in 1640. (The town was named Agawam Plantation.)
Miles Morgan
He had sailed from Bristol, England, to Boston in March 1636. On board ship he met Miss Prudence Gilbert and took quite a liking to her. She settled in nearby Beverly, Mass., with her family.
Morgan then walked 90 miles west from Boston to join a group of settlers headed by William Pynchon at Agawam Plantation. According to an old story, Miles Morgan wooed Prudence Gilbert by letter — or “by proxy.” He couldn’t read or write (not unusual for the time), but perhaps he dictated the missive.
He proposed to her to become his wife and the sharer of his dubious fortunes in the wilderness. To his frank proposal she, with equal frankness (for coquetry was not then in fashion), wrote him an explicit answer; and informed him of her willingness to comply with his wishes.
Miles Morgan, along with two neighbors and an Indian, made the journey back to Beverly in 1643. He took an old horse to carry his bride’s furniture and the muskets “to fight the armies of the aliens who might molest them.”
Once married, the happy couple then walked back to Springfield with their old horse and made a home. Morgan seems to have prospered as a farmer and butcher. He served as as constable, selectman and highway surveyor.
So why such a noble statue of an early selectman and highway surveyor? Perhaps it was because he was a hero of King Phillip’s War. In 1675, Indians attacked Springfield and destroyed a considerable part of the town. Some of the villagers took refuge in Morgan’s house and returned fire with “spirit and success.”
More likely the reason for the statue was one of Miles Morgan’s descendants: J.P. Morgan.
Ed Note: This story updated in 2022.
9 comments
If he never learned to write, how did he woo her with letters?
Maybe he could draw lol
Kara, Thanks for pointing that out! We updated the story to clarify (or maybe we just added to the confusion). According to one account, he wooed her ‘by proxy.’ That may mean someone else wrote a letter for him. (Reminds us of another Miles…)
I assumed he had someone write for him.Good eye, Kara.
[…] of the colony, Pynchon not only opened up the Connecticut River Valley for trade and founded Springfield, he also gave a start to the concept of “Banned in Boston” that continued for so many […]
[…] Bulkeleys were relatives of Wall Street tycoons Junius and J.P. Morgan, but it was J.H. Morgan in Brooklyn for whom Morgan went to work. He started out as errand boy and […]
[…] 1891, Naismith had invented basketball while working for the YMCA in Springfield, Mass. It was created not with dreams of one day becoming a major, international sport. Rather, it was […]
[…] Morgan was a descendant of Miles Morgan, an early pioneer of Springfield, Mass., and ancestor of financier J.P. Morgan. The family was […]
[…] Morgan was born on April 17, 1837 in Hartford, Conn., to an old New England family. His father, Junius Morgan, founded J.S. Morgan & Co. with George […]
Comments are closed.