The Morgan School, founded in Clinton, CT, has been an active school for over 153 years, since 1872. Even though it’s been in existence for generations, not many of its students or faculty have a clear idea of the story of Morgan. However, that was until a local Clinton historian decided to change that.
April Shuman, the historian for The Morgan Alumni Association and a volunteer for the Clinton Historical Societies, wrote a book about Morgan’s history in 2014 that details every change The Morgan School has gone through. (Click here to read her book for yourself.)
Pawprint sat down with the book to learn a little about Morgan and the school’s history.
The Man Behind the Name
Charles Morgan, the school’s founder and the one who donated the school to the town of Clinton, was born here in Clinton on April 21st, 1795. He lived at 86 East Main Street, where he would later build The Morgan School. Morgan left Clinton with only a basic high school education and followed his brother to New York.
Morgan worked as a grocery clerk at 14, and when he turned 21, he went into business, owning a ship chandlery and import business. In 1817, Morgan married Emily Reeves and had five children. Emily then unfortunately passed in 1850. Morgan remarried to Mary Jane Sexton in 1852, but they had no children.
Morgan was known to be a quiet man, very well known for how generous he was. Morgan passed away on May 8th, 1878, due to natural causes at his home in New York City. He was 83 years old.
April 1875 was the first day the school opened for students. 205 students initially signed up, with only five teachers teaching. The school only had a budget of $6,500 and was considered both a lower and a high school. Basic courses like English, math, and history were all offered, as well as classes like Latin, rhetoric, and bookkeeping.
Seventy-seven classes graduated from the original school, yet the first-ever class to graduate was only one student: Joseph Sperry. Due to growing student numbers, in May 1950, the town of Clinton voted to build a new school. The town bought a 24-acre site for $10,000 in 1948, located on Route 81. The building would house grades 7-12.
In the fall of 1951, the new Morgan would open its doors, and in 1967, the school would get a $1.9 million renovation to add additional classes. It would continue to operate till 2017 when the new school would open down the road, replacing the old one again.
Keeping track of Clinton’s past
For Shuman, Morgan’s name continues to live on today. “I grew up in Clinton in the 1950s and 1960s, when Morgan was a vital part of the community,” said Shuman, “It was ingrained in us that the school’s name was The Morgan School, not Morgan High School.”
In 2018, Shuman updated her book to include more recent information. Shuman is an avid historian. When she’s volunteering at the Historical Society, she keeps a list of all Morgan graduates, recording specifically who is a veteran; she updates the posts on their Facebook page to keep the public involved.
The Historical Society itself has five officers and six executive committee members. Shuman herself puts in around 20 – 25 hours a week of her free time into volunteering at the society, three of those hours are spent strictly towards historical research on Morgan and Clinton at the Clinton Historical George Flynn Archival Library. “It’s important to learn from the past; to see how life in Clinton and Morgan has changed over the years and to save the stories of events and people that shaped our community so that they are not forgotten.”
