Morgan, Samuel Tate

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(Courtesy Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, via Museum of Durham History)

Samuel Tate Morgan (1857-1919), son of a Flat River planter Samuel Davidson Morgan, established the Durham Fertilizer Co. with partners Eugene Morehead and L.A. Carr in 1881. The company capitalized on tobacco stems, waste to smoking-tobacco manufacturers but a rich source of the nutrient phosphorus. Quickly successful, Durham Fertilizer opened branches in Virginia and South Carolina and in 1895 Morgan combined all fertilizer manufacturing in North Carolina and Virginia the Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co. The company became the largest industrial firm in the South, with headquarters in Richmond.

Morgan lived out his later years in Richmond, but had an avid interest in his former hometown and its history. He bought the former James and Nancy Bennett farm from Brodie Duke (a Bennett relative by marriage) and wanted to see it preserved as a historic site. Morgan died before he saw it happen, but his heirs joined others with the same interest to establish the site as a public preserve and erect its Unity Monument in 1923.

Related as a builder

Related as an architect

Related buildings

Cleveland Bragg House

Both the three black-and-white photos and the text in italics are from the Durham County Historic Architecture Inventory (NE-8 and NE-9). Either fertilizer magnate S. T. Morgan or William D. Holloway may have been the first owner of Durham County’s fanciest Triple-A I-house. Cleveland Bragg, a prosperous tobacco farmer with whom the house is...
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Durham / Virginia-Carolina Chemical / Fertilizer Company

Virginia-Carolina Chemical Company, looking northeast, ~1920 (Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection) Samuel Tate Morgan, in partnership with Eugene Morehead, and Louis (Lewis) Carr, established the Durham Fertilizer Company around 1881; he hit upon using a waste product of the tobacco production process - the stems - to make...
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Submitted by Nan Wallace (not verified) on Thu, 11/28/2013 - 6:55am

My Grandfather and Father worked their whole lives at VCC. Dad started as a lead burner and worked his way up to plant superintendent.

Submitted by jamesleegilbert on Wed, 7/20/2022 - 8:49am

Morgan's daughter, Alyce Blanche, married the former UNC football coach William Ayres Reynolds (after his coaching career) who became an executive with a cottonseed oil company. They would settle in Charlotte, NC. Their son would marry (and later divorce) Isabelle Tarver Wade who was lifelong friends with Doris Duke.

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