Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men: Comprising Biographical Sketches of Pioneer Settlers and Prominent Citizens
History
Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men: Comprising Biographical Sketches of Pioneer Settlers and Prominent Citizens
Cleveland (Ohio) -- Biography; Cleveland (Ohio) -- History
In 1841, he bade adieu to Massachusetts and came west to Ohio, taking up
his future home in Cleveland. He plunged into business immediately on
arriving, opening a store on the north side of Superior street, in the
place now occupied by the store of Mould & Numsen. In 1857, he saw what he
believed to be a more eligible site for business in the corner of Superior
and Seneca streets, and to that point he removed in 1858. At the same
time the firm of Morgan & Root was formed by admitting to partnership Mr.
R. R. Root. To the retail dry goods business was now added a wholesale
department, as also a millinery department, and subsequently a grocery.
The business was vigorously pushed and every department grew with
remarkable rapidity, until store after store was added to the
establishment. The "corner store" became known far and wide, and a very
large country trade was built up in the jobbing department. During the
last three years of the war, the business of the firm reached an amount
greater than had ever been anticipated by its members, and the old
quarters, capable no longer of extension, became too strait for the
expanding operations. A number of lots on the east side of Bank street,
between the Herald building and Frankfort street, being purchased by
Morgan & Root, were speedily disencumbered of the drinking saloons and
petty shops that covered them, and on their site soon arose one of the
finest business blocks in the city, estimated to cost sixty thousand
dollars in addition to the cost of the land. When the block was finished
the wholesale department of the business was removed to the new building,
leaving the retail department to be carried on in the old store. In
February, 1869, the retail business was sold out to new parties, and
thereafter the firm of Morgan & Root confined itself exclusively to the
wholesale trade.
That Mr. Morgan is one of the best business men of the city is proved by
the fact that he has failed in no one of his undertakings; not that he
has always sailed on a smooth current of success, but that when
difficulties arose his indomitable perseverance enabled him to overcome
them. He engaged in no enterprise without its having been based on good
evidence and sound judgment; he never wavered in his adherence to it, nor
slackened for a moment his endeavors to prove his faith sound; nor has he
once been disappointed as to the result. Few men have shown a like
perseverance. His habits of keen investigation and strict attention to
his affairs, enabled him to do a very safe, though a very enterprising
business, and consequently he had little occasion for professional
acquaintance with lawyers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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