114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SKETCH OF LEWIS II. MOKGAN, 



PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOB THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



By J. "VV. POWELL. 



LEWIS HENRY MORGAN was born near the village of Aurora, 

 New York, November 21, 1818. The subject of this sketch is 

 eight generations in lineal descent on his father's side from James 

 Morgan, who settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1646 ; and on his 

 mother's side from John Steele, who settled in Newton, now Cam- 

 bridge, in 1641 ; beginning with these, seven generations of his ances- 

 tors have lived and died in New England. 



In 1840, at the age of twenty-one, young Morgan graduated at 

 Union College, and was engaged in the study of law until 1844. Dur- 

 ing this time he occasionally wrote articles for the " Knickerbocker " 

 and other periodicals. On his return to Aurora from college he was 

 induced to join a secret society composed of young men of that place. 

 This trivial circumstance had a great influence on his future career. 

 The society was organized for no definite purpose, and failed to inter- 

 est young Morgan, who at once looked about for some method of ex- 

 panding the society and extending its influence ; and finally, under his 

 management, a new society was organized and styled "The Grand 

 Order of the Iroquois." The plan was to model it somewhat after 

 the pattern of Indian tribes, and to extend the organization over all the 

 territory occupied by the Iroquois, and to have a group of branch 

 societies for each area occupied by an Iroquois tribe, or nation, as they 

 were then called, and these larger divisions divided into chapters as 

 Indian nations were divided into gentes so-called tribes. 



In order that this new organization might be i^rojierly formed on 

 the plan of the ancient Iroquois confederacy, young Morgan went 

 among the Indians of New York for the purpose of studying their 

 social organization and government. In this he soon became deeply 

 interested, as did many of the originators of " The Grand Order 

 of the Iroquois." A number of the gentlemen who took part in 

 the organization of the society have since risen to important posi- 

 tions in American society, as a mention of the following names will 

 demonstrate: Rev. Isaac N. Hurd ; Henry Haight, afterward Gov- 

 ernor of California ; the late General Albert J. Myer, Chief of the Sig- 

 nal Service ; Hon, George Barker, Justice of the Supreme Court of 

 New York ; the late Judge Charles P. Avery, of Oswego ; the late Hon. 

 Charles Billinghurst, member of Congress from Wisconsin ; Rev. An- 

 son J. Upton, President of the Auburn Theological Seminary ; Charles 

 T. Porter, of Philadelphia ; Hon. Theodore Pomeroy, of Auburn ; 

 William Allen, of Auburn ; C. White, of Aurora ; the late Frederick 

 De Lano, of Rochester ; the late Alexander Mann, of Rochester ; Hon. 



