Elizabeth Ann Morgan

Daughter of Thomas Wm Morgan and Ann Olin Watkins

1845-1925

Their Children and Spouses

Robert Thomas Paul Gourley 1863-1924 - Elizabeth Ann Weech 1868-1951.
Margaret Elizabeth Gourley 1865-1894 - Volly Boswell 1858-1893
Ellison Ann Gourley 1867-1942 - Brigham Young Riley 1866-1912
Mary Ellen Gourley 1869-1928 - Walter Scott Rouse 1862-1942
Luella Gourley 1871-1951 - George Ira Ercanbrack 1868-1924
George D Gourley 1873-1962 - Minnie Rose Finch 1874-1963
William Gourley 1875-1916 - Dora Emma Morgan 1881-1970
Robert Gourley 1879-1944 - Margaret Knotts 1884-1963
James Henery Gourley 1880-1945 - Maggie May Rolfe 1883-1944
Janet Gourley 1883-1967 - James Paul Foster 1839-1905
Edward Sydney Gourley 1886-1962 - Amy Quinton 1894-1980

Below is a picture of Elizabeth Morgan Gourley with her daughter Janet (Nettie) Gourley Foster. Also on this page is a life sketch for Elizabeth and Robert Gourley written by Leon Pitman.

Sitting: Elizabeth Morgan Gourley (1845-1925). Standing, daughter Janet (Nettie) Gourley Foster (1883-1967).

Robert Gourley (1839-1905)

Robert Gourley was born in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland 19 February 1839. He came to America, at the age of 17, with his father Paul Gourley and family in 1856 on the wooden ship Thornton as part of a Perpetual Immigration Fund group. He traveled to Utah with his father and family in the Martin handcart company which was destined to go down in LDS church history as the infamous Willie-Martin handcart tragedy. The baby they had with them died but the rest of the family, after much hardship, made it to Utah.

Robert Gourley and Elizabeth Morgan met while living in Goshen, Utah. He died in Goshen on 6 January 1905, leaving Elizabeth a widow with their two youngest unmarried children and nine married children. A few years before her death, Elizabeth moved to Eureka, Utah to be close to two of her sons and their families who were living there. She died in Eureka in January of 1925. She is buried in the Goshen Cemetery next to her husband.Robert Gourley was born in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland 19 February 1839. He came to America, at the age of 17, with his father Paul Gourley and family in 1856 on the wooden ship Thornton as part of a Perpetual Immigration Fund group. He traveled to Utah with his father and family in the Martin handcart company which was destined to go down in LDS church history as the infamous Willie-Martin handcart tragedy. The baby they had with them died but the rest of the family, after much hardship, made it to Utah.

Robert Gourley and Elizabeth Morgan met while living in Goshen, Utah. He died in Goshen on 6 January 1905, leaving Elizabeth a widow with their two youngest unmarried children and nine married children. A few years before her death, Elizabeth moved to Eureka, Utah to be close to two of her sons and their families who were living there. She died in Eureka in January of 1925. She is buried in the Goshen Cemetery next to her husband.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Morgan was the second child born to Thomas Morgan and Ann Watkins Morgan. She was born 31 August 1845 in Bellhoughton Worcestershire, England, but as a young girl lived mainly in the town of Bishops Frome, Herefordshire where her parents had settled. As a farm laborer her father found temporary or seasonal work in different communities, thus her birth in Bellhoughton, located about 25 miles from Bishops Frome.

When Elizabeth was about six years old, in 1851, her parents joined the Mormon Church and looked forward to emigrating to Utah. In 1855, 10 year old Elizabeth boarded the ship Siddens in Liverpool, England with her parents and sisters Eliza and Priscilla, for the long journey to America. It took the ship two months to reach Philadelphia where they disembarked. After a railroad trip to Pittsburgh, the next two months were spent traveling down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri and on to Atchison, Kansas, riding on at least three different steamboats.

Elizabeth's family spent the summer of 1855 working on a large LDS Church owned farm in Garden Grove, Kansas. The Morgans left Garden Grove on August 5, 1855, spending most of the next three months traveling in the Milo Andrus wagon train crossing 1200 miles of plains and mountains to the Salt Lake Valley, reaching their destination in late October of 1855.

Elizabeth's first home in Utah was Kaysville, about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City. Two years before her arrival, her uncle Joseph Morgan and her older brother Edward had made the trip to Utah and had settled in Kaysville.

After two years in Kaysville her Morgan family moved to Goshen, Utah. Located about 30 miles south of Provo, Goshen was just being founded in 1857, and her parents were original pioneers of that community. They may have lived for a brief time in Old Fort Goshen where the original settlers of Goshen lived until they were able to claim home sites in the newly founded town.

In 1862, at the age of 17, Elizabeth Morgan married Robert Gourley while living in Goshen. He was one of the original pioneers of that community and a native of Scotland. In 1866 Elizabeth and Robert moved temporarily to the pioneer community of Deseret where her parents and other relatives were involved in the initial founding of that town on the Seveir River in Millard County, Utah. But probably by 1868, when Deseret was being abandoned by its first pioneers, Elizabeth and Robert moved back to Goshen where they settled for the rest of their lives and raised a family of 11 children. They were a farm family, and Robert was a watermaster for an important irrigation ditch which delivered water to farms in the Goshen area. Later in her life Elizabeth traveled occasionally to the Ririe area of eastern Idaho where she appears in at least two group pictures with her parents and siblings. The first of these pictures was taken before her mother died in 1894. The second picture, taken about 1917, shows her with most of her siblings and half siblin

She married Robert Gourley in 1862 at the age of 17