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Eliza Morgan, the third child of Thomas Morgan and Ann Watkins, was born 11 April
1849 at Cobhill, Bishops Frome, Herefordshire, England. She married George Morrison in Deseret, Millard, Utah 31 June 1868.
She died 26 May 1882 in Oak City, Millard, Utah. She came to America with her family in 1855. Except for a sister, Mary Ann
Morgan, who died as an infant, Eliza died youngest of all her siblings.
From a locally kept history of Leamington, Utah, speaking of Eliza Morgan Morrison:
"She was a crippled lady who bore five children. One child died in infancy, the other four died of diptheria in 1882. Mother
and children are buried in the Oak City cemetary."
There is an error in the above quoted text. One of the children died in 1878, the second died
in 1880, and the other three died in 1882.
In the biographical sketches section of "Echoes of the Sage and Cedar," which is
a locally compiled history of the Oak City and Leamington, Utah area, we find the following account submitted by Ava N. Anderson:
George Morrison was born 22 May 1845, at Arbreath (Arbroath), Scotland. He was baptized in 1858. ........His name is among
the list of settlers first coming to Oak Creek, Utah. He must have been married at the time because his name did not appear
with the list of unmarried men-names taken from 'Milestones of Millard.' He married Eliza Morgan, a daughter of Thomas and
Ann Ollen Watkins Morgan........ Old timers remember that George had a herd of dairy cows which he ran in the canyon. ....Old
Timers remember that Eliza was a crippled lady. To the couple were born five children: Nettie, Isabelle, Amy, George and Eliza
who died in infancy. Isabelle lived to be six years old. In 1882 diptheria took the remaining Morrison children. Then the
mother died 26 June, 1882. All are buried in the Oak City Cemetery. Records show George married Eunice Lestra Stewart in 1884.
She was a schoolteacher in Leamington. George moved to Leamington and later to Provo, Utah where he died 25 April, 1927.
Eliza's parents Thomas and Ann Morgan lived about two years in Kaysville, Utah
and then moved to Goshen, Utah where they lived from 1857 to about 1866. When Eliza was a teenager the family moved from Goshen
in order to establish a new community in Deseret, Utah. It was here that she met and married George Morrison. George was born
in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland. He came to America at the age of 11 and first settled in Illinois. He came to Utah at the age
of 19 where he helped pioneer new communities in Deseret, Oak City, and Leamington. Eliza and George lived for a short time
in Deseret and then moved to Oak City.
George and Eliza's five children (as listed by death date-not birth date-on the grave marker
shown below), Isabelle (1872-1878), Eliza (1879-1880), Nettie (1870-1882), Amy (1875-1882), and George (1877-1882), were born
and died in Oak City. Nettie, the child who lived the longest, only lived 12 years.
In the 1880 census of Oak City Eliza
and George Morrison had children Ann Jennett (Nettie) 11 years old, Amy 5 years old, and George 3 years old living with them.
The year 1882 must have
been incredibly difficult for George Morrison as his wife and the last three of his children all died. The children are believed
to have died of diptheria but the cause of Eliza's death is not noted. They are all memorialized as "George Morrison
Family" on one stone marker in the Oak City Cemetery. (Shown below)
The stone in the picture above appears to have been placed some time after the death of Eliza and her children. The
information on the back of the stone is as follows: Jeanette Sievewright Morrison Mother of George Morrison Born
1819 Died 1887 Wanda Lucile Morrison Daughter of George and Eunice Lestra Stewart Morrison Born 1889 Died
1890.
George Morrison memorialized his first wife and her five children,
his mother, and a daughter from his second marriage on this one stone.
Sometime after the death of
Eliza in 1882 George Morrison (shown in the picture above) moved to Leamington, Utah where he met and married his second wife Eunice Stewart
(in 1884) who was a school teacher in Leamington.
From a locally compiled history of Leamington it is reported that in the early 1880's 4 lime
kilns {They were Charcoal Kilns but may have been converted later to burn lime} were built about one mile out of town at the
mouth of Leamington Canyon. Two of the kilns are still extant. They were built by George Morrison. It also is reported that
George erected the first store in Leamington on land formerly owned by his father in law Thomas Morgan. He later staked a
claim on a lead mine at Fool Creek in the mountains above Leamington.
George Morrison and his second wife moved to Provo, Utah about 1905 where
he died at the age of 82 after a long illness. He is buried next to Eunice Lestra Stewart Morrison in the Provo City Cemetery,
Provo, Utah.
Leamington Kilns
Click on the link above to see pictures of the remaining kilns built by George Morrison.
Eliza Morgan Morrison Memorial
Click on the link above to see a memorial to this woman who lived such a short life and left so little to remember her by.
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