J. Pierpont Morgan

At the recommendation of a friend, I recently purchased a book, “Morgan: American Financier” by Jean Strouse. This rather thick tome (nearly 800 pages) is a biography of J. Pierpont Morgan, one of the more famous relatives in the New England Pierpont family of which I am currently one of the co-historians.

As the introduction notes, most biographies of him in the past have tended to be either one-sidedly laudatory or one-sidedly derogatory. Even his authorized biographer, his son-in-law Herbert Satterlee, “left out large pieces of his public and private life and got important facts wrong. Intent on answering Morgan’s critics by emphasizing his patriotic spirit and jolly Christmas parties, Satterlee drained all vitality from the tale.”

Strouse learned that the Pierpont Morgan Library had vaults of uncatalogued biographical documents, including his childhood diaries, adult letters, volumes of business correspondence and hundreds of photographs. Besides studying this material, Strouse found additional documents in private hands on both sides of the Atlantic. Thus, this biography took over a decade to write as Strouse had to discover the man behind the stories and legends (some of which were patently false).

I’m not going to try and summarize all 800 pages here but want to concentrate on the connections to the Pierpont family. Most of this is contained in chapter 2, entitled “Pierponts and Morgans,” but there are bits and pieces of it scattered throughout the rest of the book as well.

Pierpont Genealogy

Strouse notes that there were vast differences between the “intellectual, ecclesiastical Pierponts and the enterprising, managerial Morgans.” He summarizes the Pierpont genealogy over the course of a few pages, beginning with “[d]escended from French Pierreponts who crossed the English Channel with the Norman Conquest,” continuing with James “a graduate and pastor of the Congregationalist First Church in New Haven,” then going through Jonathan Edwards and a few more generations “before the birth, in 1785, of Pierpont Morgan’s grandfather, John, in Litchfield County, Connecticut.”

He goes into considerable background about John and his family, including his marriage to Mary Sheldon Lord (John’s fourth cousin), and his children, William, Mary, Juliet, John Jr., James, and Caroline. James Lord Pierpont is of course the one of “Jingle Bells” fame. Little is known about the early life of Juliet, except that she married a young man from Hartford, Junius Spencer Morgan.

On April 17, 1837, Junius and Juliet had a son and named him John Pierpont Morgan. When he was baptized three months later by his grandfather, his cumbersome name gave rise to several alternatives. “Family letters and diaries refer to ‘Junius Child,’ ‘Junius Boy,” “young Mr. Morgan,’ and ‘Master J.P.’ His parents nicknamed him ‘Bub.’ Schoolmates later called him ‘Pip.’ As soon as he was old enough to write, he signed himself ‘J. Pierpont Morgan,’ and was known as Pierpont Morgan for the rest of his life.”

Growing Up

My favorite paragraph in this part of the book is found on page 26.

“The contrast between Morgans and Pierponts sharpened during the childhood of the boy with both names. The competent, close-knit, energetic Hartford relatives [the Morgans] were exacting and somewhat stern. The Bostonians [the Pierponts] – feckless, impecunious, at odds with one another, plagued by physical and psychological troubles – were a mess; they were also, for a child, more fun.”

Junius and Juliet lived either with, or in close proximity to, Junius’ parents in Hartford. Junius’ father, Joseph, was quite active and moneyed and Junius followed in his footsteps. This included both business and politics, but in religion Junius went a different way. He and his wife joined the Episcopal Church, but this church was so affiliated with wealth and social prestige the its own clergymen worried about presiding over a “church … only for the rich.” With Junius often gone on lengthy business trips, Pierpont’s paternal grandparents were like a second set of parents to him.

Nonetheless, once he was old enough to travel on his own, Pierpont managed to make several long trips to see his maternal grandparents who by this time were in Troy, NY. Between the ages of seven and twenty, Pierpont changed schools nine times (generally at the direction of his father who saw schooling as a training ground for the serious business of adult life). Many of these were boarding schools such as Episcopal Academy in Cheshire [now called the Cheshire Academy]. In 1848, while boarding at the Pavilion Family School in Hartford, Pierpont recited in class a poem, “Warren’s Address to the American Soldiers.” This poem had been written for the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825 – by his grandfather, John Pierpont. Looking forward to another visit to Troy that spring, he wrote, “I am almost ready to think that April will never come I think so much of going to Troy.” Unfortunately, he was summoned home early from that visit because his father had signed him up for an entrance exam to yet another school, the Hartford Public High School [which coincidently had been founded by Pierpont’s ancestor on his mother’s side, Thomas Hooker].

Even the books that were provided to Pierpont by family members reflected on the differences between the two families. From his father he received “Marco Paul’s Adventures and Travels in the Pursuit of Knowledge: On the Erie Canal” – containing lessons on commerce, credit and profit. From his mother he received a biography of George Washington with lessons on hard work, self-discipline, and common sense. From his father’s sister he received “Young Men Admonished” on the dangers of drinking, gambling, etc. But from his grandfather in Troy he received “The Youth’s Historical Gift … containing familiar descriptions of civil, military and naval events by the Old English chroniclers, Froissart, Monstrellet, and others, and also the history of John of Arc and her times,” featuring a charging mounted knight in gold on the cover.

Later Life Contacts

Because of the dictates on his life by his father and his father’s family, Pierpont eventually grew estranged from his relatives on his mother’s side. The growing eccentricities among the Pierponts just accentuated this – from his uncle James serving with the Confederate Army during the Civil War to his grandfather’s bitter memories from being forced out of the Hollis Street Church.

While he had enjoyed his visits with his grandfather in Troy for many years, contact between he and his grandparents diminished over the years. The death of his grandmother did not help, especially when his grandfather remarried – to a woman only 5 years older than Juliet. Nonetheless, when Juliet decided, near the end of her life, to honor her father with a stained-glass window at the Hollis Street Church, Pierpont assisted by completing his mother’s commission, dictating the inscription: “To the glory of God: and in memory of the Revd John Pierpont. Born Litchfield, Conn., April 6, 1785. Died Medford, Mass. (…). Minister of this church from (…) to (…). Erected by his daughter, Juliet Pierpont Morgan.” Someone else filled in the dates.

Now in his mid-40s, with his grandparents and his mother now having passed on, it does not appear that Pierpont had any further contact with any family members of the family after which he took his name. His life for the next 30 years would be consumed in continuing the banking career that he had been trained for by his father and grandfather Morgan.