John H. Morgan (Washington County)
State House: 1870-1875
Born: c. 1841 in Maryland
Died: November 1876 in Leota, MS
Sergeant Major in Company A of the 66th U. S. Colored Infantry. Appointed to the county board of supervisors. Listed on the 1870 census in Washington County with wife Emma and one daughter, occupation “Legislator.”
According to the Greenville Times, Morgan’s body was discovered in the woods in mid-November 1876. The ruling of the coroner’s inquest was that he “came to his death by the discharge of a loaded shotgun in his own hands.” Whether the death was an accident, a suicide, or a murder, it is certainly suspicious.
Emma is listed on the 1880 census with four children in the household. By 1900, Emma and the children had moved to Desha County, Arkansas, where descendants are well documented in later records.
The New National Era called Morgan “a first-class example of what the changed condition really is of a man in slavery to one in freedom.”
This page was last updated on January 6, 2026.