Morgan was born in Hartford, Connecticut on 17 April 1837, while he died on March 31 1931. His father was Junius Spencer Morgan and mother was Juliet Pierpont, who lived in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother was born in the year 1816, and she died in 1884, while his father was born in the year 1813 and died in 1890. John Pierpont Morgan liked himself to be called by the name Pierpont.
Thanks to Morgan senior, Pierpont had a mixed kind of education. The late 1848 witnessed the change of Pierpont from one school to another. At first, he was sent to the Hartford Public School. But this arrangement was not to suit young Pierpont for long. And so in the same year he was shifted to the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire. He used to live there with the principal of the academy. The Episcopal Academy in Cheshire is now known by the name of Cheshire Academy. Three years later Pierpont appeared for the entrance examination for English High School of Boston. Luckily for Pierpont, he cleared the examination. English High School of Boston at that time had a very good reputation for being a school that coached young men in mathematics for a bright future in the field of commerce
In the year 1857, Pierpont suffered from rheumatic fever. What he was unaware then, was the fact that this fever was to be a frequent visitor in his life. In 1857 when he first suffered from this ailment, he was rendered severely weak and had to bear a lot of pain. Things were so bad that he couldn’t even walk. It was then the decision of Junius Pierpont to pack his son off on ship to the Azores, which are the Portuguese islands situated in the northern parts. Morgan senior has the motive of his son’s recovery behind this decision of his. The ship in which Pierpont went to Azores was owned by a man named Charles Dabney. It was nearly a year that Pierpont took for convalescence. At the end of the year, he came back to the English High School of Boston and got back to his studies. He graduated from there and after graduation, his father decided to send him to Bellerive. It is a school situated in Vevey, close to the Swiss village. His father decided to send him to the University of Göttingen, once Pierpont had enough mastery in French. This course of action was taken keeping in mind the target of making Pierpont attain fluency in German. The pupil reached his goal in half a year, and once he achieved his target, he set back for London. Thus, Pierpont’s education was complete!
Morgan junior now stepped into the world of banking. It was the year 1852. He started his banking career by working at his father’s London branch. The next year he shifted to New York City and there offered his service to the Duncan, Sherman & Company. This banking house was George Peabody & Company’s American representatives. Starting from 1860 to the year 1864 Pierpont served his father’s firm by being its agent. However life was kind to him and soon he got the position of being a member of the Dabney, Morgan & Company. He was also lucky enough to be the partner of Drexel of Philadelphia, and jointly they formed the firm of Drexel, Morgan & Company (New York).
The American Civil War saw the calculative financer in Morgan. It was, however, the genius in Morgan’s partner that made him earn so much of profit. It was obviously with full understanding of his partner’s genius plan that Morgan had invested in the project. The rifles that Morgan’s partner bought with Morgan’s money were re-machined and sold to the American army at $22 each. Morgan had no involvement in the re-machining or the selling, but only lent his partner the money.
Anthony Drexel died in the year 1893 and thus in the year 1895 the firm found a new name- J. P. Morgan & Company. But Morgan didn’t forget to maintain close relations with Morgan, Harjes & Company of Paris, Drexel & Company of Philadelphia, and J. S. Morgan & Company of London ( which was known as the Morgan, Grenfell & Company, till before the year 1910). The next few years saw Morgan as one of the leading banking houses of his time. He had people like George W. Perkins as his partner. However, he always made sure that he had the upper hand.
The year 1869 saw the battle of power as Morgan started becoming more and more powerful. His target was to take over from Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, the control of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad. In this clash of powers, Morgan didn’t have to wait long for having things his way and the world soon witnessed him developing railroads in all parts of the United States of America.
In 1890, Morgan lost his father. Soon after he decided on creating the United States Steel Corporation and for this purpose, he started negotiating with Charles M Schwab, president of Carnegie Co. Morgan finally bought the company for $480 million. It thus got the status of being the first million-dollar company with a $1.4 billion capitalization that was authorized.
Conclusion
Morgan was very useful to the U.S. government, as he would help it by investing in government bonds at the time of crisis, something that he did in 1877. Morgan became a man of power who headed the boards of many companies, Western Union Telegraph Company and General Electric being a few of the well known ones.
When Morgan died in 1913, the value of his estate was $80 million. In today’s worth $1.2 billion!!
