The Daniel Morgan collection is made up of 63 financial records, legal documents, correspondence, and other items related to General Daniel Morgan and to Willoughby Morgan, his son. The majority of the collection consists of accounts, bonds, promissory notes, and other documents pertaining to Daniel Morgan's financial affairs. Accounts and invoices record Morgan's purchases of clothing, wagon-related equipment and services, and other items. Some of the later items do not concern Morgan directly but have his legal endorsement. Also included are two outgoing letters by Morgan, a 9-page legal document about a lawsuit against Morgan, and a deposition that Morgan gave in a different dispute. Other items are a bond regarding Morgan's marriage to Abigail Curry (March 30, 1773) and Morgan's political address to the citizens of Allegheny County about politics and the militia (January 17, 1795). Three of the documents pertain to enslaved and free African Americans (November 6, 1773; June 13, 1789; and March 28, 1799). Later items mostly pertain to the estate of Willoughby Morgan, Daniel Morgan's son. James Graham wrote two letters to unknown recipients in 1847 and 1856 about his efforts to write Daniel Morgan's biography, which he subsequently published.
Printed items include a map of the surrender of Yorktown (undated), a newspaper article from a Winchester, Virginia, paper about the possible disinterment of Daniel Morgan's remains (August 18, 1951), and printed portraits of Daniel Morgan with manuscript and facsimile autographs.
Daniel Morgan was born in 1735 or 1736, the son of Welsh immigrants James and Eleanor Morgan. Morgan moved to Frederick County, Virginia, around the age of 18, where he was a farm laborer and wagon driver. After the French and Indian War, he owned his own farm near Winchester, Virginia, and served as a captain in the local militia. During the Revolutionary War, Morgan raised and led a company of riflemen, and he participated in many engagements in the northern and southern theaters of the war. After the war, he became a major general in the Virginia militia that helped suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. He also served in the United States House of Representatives. He had one son out of wedlock, Willoughby, and had two daughters with his wife, Abigail Curry. Daniel Morgan died on July 6, 1802.
Willoughby Morgan spent much of his early life in South Carolina and later moved to Winchester, Virginia. After the War of 1812, he became a professional army officer. He died in 1832.