TOM P. MORGAN (1864-1929)

Thomas P. Morgan, or, as he wrote his name in later years, Tom P. Morgan, was born in East Lyme, Connecticut, December I, 1864. He was a son of Joseph P. and Mary Ann Morgan, and was educated in the schools of Connecticut and Kansas, his parents having removed to the latter place in the 1870's. Tom began his career as an actor, then for a time was a clown with a circus, and finally graduated into literature from the editorship of a country newspaper in 1885. In 1890 he removed to Rogers, Arkansas, where he operated a book and stationery store. He contributed to all the leading periodicals which used short stories or humorous articles, including Puck, Judge, Harpers, Golden Days, Drake's Magazine, Sunier Weekly, Youth's Companion, Frank Leslie's and The Saturday Evening Post. For a long time he wrote a daily column for the Kansas City Star, and many of his articles were written over the signature "Tennyson J. Daft." He was also the author of more than 250 poems. He was unmarried and lived alone in a bungalow in Rogers, Arkansas, and numbered Will Rogers and his wife among his friends. Some five years before his death, which occurred July 7, †1928, he suffered a paralytic stroke. He had no near relatives, so left his estate, amounting to between twenty and twenty-five thousand dollars, to his nurse.

REFERENCES: Who's Who, XII to XVI; Fred W. Allsopp, Poets and Poetry of Arkansas, Little Rock, 1922, 109; Arthur Grissom, "Westerners Who Write," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 28, 1888; Journalist, VIII, November 10, 1888, 2, XI, August 9, 1890; Editor and Publisher, LXI, July 14, 1928; obituary in New York Times, July 8, 1928,21, col. 3.

Banner Weekly. No. 554
Boy's Library (octavo). No. 261

† Correction made as per Volume 3.