LEWIS HENRY MORGAN was born on a farm near the vfflage of Aurora, New York, on November 21, 1818. He was descended from Welsh ancestors who had settled in Massachusetts in the 1640's. His grandfather, Thomas Morgan, brought his family to New York state in 1792 where he settled on a six hundred-acre farm allotted to him for his service in the Continental Army. Jedediah, Lewis' father, was a weU-to-do farmer who engaged in" mercantile pursuits" and was elected to the state legislature. Jedediah's first wife died after seven years of marriage leaving him with five children. He then married Harriet Steele of Hartford, Connecticut, who bore eight children of whom Lewis was one.^

Jedediah Morgan moved his family to the village of Aurora when Lewis was stiU a child. Lewis attended the Cayuga Academy in Aurora and then went to Union College for the junior and senior years, graduating in 1840. At Union CoUege, in addition to the customary instruction in Greek, Latin, mathematics, and rhetoric, he took courses in physiology, political economy," Kames and Guizot," law, and Italian.^