Thomas Wolfe Morgan, City Engineer of Oakland, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, December 3, 1839, the only son of Judge Thomas Nicholson Morgan and Mary De Neale (Wolfe) Morgan. ...
T. W. Morgan, the subject of this sketch, received his early education in New Orleans and in Warren, Ohio, and his finishing course under his mother’s adopted father, Rev. Dr. Wheat, at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from about the age of fifteen to eighteen. He came to this coast by the Panama routte. arriving in December, 1857. Here he engaged as assistant to James Terrell, United States Deputy Surveyor, then occupied in Monterey county, remaining with him four months. He had learned something of that science in the University of North Carolina, and now continued his studies, being somewhat undecided whether to embrace architecture or engineering as a career. In 1861 he decided in favor of the latter, under Robert L. Harris, the first work being the survey of the first horse railroad in San Francisco. Remaining with Mr. Harris some four years, he was engaged in different jobs, such as the Ophir railroad in Virginia city, which was abandoned as a railroad enterprise, but the survey was utilized for a wagon road. He did the instrumental work on the Point San Jose survey, and at Black Point Fort about 1863, and was transit man on Harris’ work for the Central Pacific railroad in 1864 and 1865. He next surveyed under George C. Potter, City and County Surveyor of San Francisco, acting chiefly as leveler and computer, and afterward as chief draughtsman to Assessor Wheaton for two years. In 1868, in partnership with another pupil of Robert L. Harris, he formed the firm of Morgan & Smith, civil engineers and surveyors. He had charge of the land party in the survey of the Oakland waterfront. In 1870, he was chief engineer of the first horse railroad in Sacramento. In 1871 he surveyed the town of Calistoga, making a map thereof, which is still recognized as standard. In 1872, he came to work as deputy to T. J. Arnold, city engineer, and made a map of the Northern Addition to Oakland. In 1873 he was put in charge of the office as chief deputy, so remaining until Mr. Arnold’s death in 1878. He was then appointed City Engineer by the City Council, holding the same by their reappointment until the new charter took effect in April, 1889. He is now his own successor, under the new regime, by appointment by the Board of Public Works. Some few years ago he made the preliminary survey of the Cliff House steam railroad, and also laid off the grounds on Sutro Heights for the proprietor, but his work of late years has been chiefly confined to the discharge of his official duties. He is a member of the Technical Society of the Pacific coast; also of the California Society of Civil Engineers.
Mr. Morgan was married in Santa Cruz, December 25, 1865, to Miss Christiana Agnes Ross ...
