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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region's history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.
Long before Warren became known for its automobile industry, horse-drawn transportation was a necessity in local manufacturing.
One of the businesses that bridged those two eras was the Morgan & Williams Carriage Manufacturing Company.
Owen D. Morgan was born in South Wales in 1858. When he was 2, his family moved to Youngstown, where he learned the carriage-making trade at the Youngstown Carriage and Wagon Company.
By the late 1880s, Morgan had established himself in Warren, entering into a partnership with Gottlieb Lemley in 1889.
The business went through several partnerships over the years, including Siegfried & Morgan, before becoming Morgan & Williams in 1903. By the turn of the century, the company was well established on West Market Street in Warren.
Morgan's partner, William A. Williams, had also come to Ohio as a child. Born in Mount Savage, Maryland, in 1856, Williams worked at a rolling mill before joining the Youngstown police force. He later served as a marshal, managed the Akron Iron Company, and eventually came to Warren, where he joined Morgan in the carriage business.
His career extended well beyond manufacturing: he served two terms as Trumbull County sheriff and was involved with several local financial and civic organizations. Morgan & Williams manufactured an impressive range of horse-drawn vehicles, including buggies, carriages, wagons, drays, farm wagons, surreys and sleighs. The company also specialized in milk and delivery wagons and offered blacksmithing, iron and wood repair, and bicycle repair.
Its reputation extended beyond Trumbull County. But the company was also positioned at the beginning of another transportation revolution. In 1899, Morgan & Williams produced the body for the first automobile built by Warren's Packard brothers, William Doud and James Ward Packard. The company's experience crafting finely made carriage bodies proved adaptable to the new "horseless carriage."
As automobiles became increasingly common, Morgan & Williams adapted rather than disappearing with the carriage trade. The company began distributing automobiles, including Overland, Maxwell, Oakland, Oldsmobile and Columbia models, and by 1916 had left the carriage business entirely. The company's West Market Street location reflected Warren's changing landscape as well.
In 1909, plans for a new Morgan & Williams garage were adjusted to accommodate a proposed widening of the Mahoning River channel near City Hall. The resulting building measured 50 feet wide by 125 feet deep. Before Warren's street addresses were changed in 1929, the company's operations were listed at 17-25 W. Market St., in the vicinity of where CharBenay's Wine on the River and the Greater Warren-Youngstown Urban League are located today. The company's buildings can even be glimpsed in the background of photographs of the old City Hall or West Market bridge. One of the buildings was later used by various automobile manufacturers, including Chevrolet in the 1930s, before eventually being demolished.
Morgan retired in 1916, the same year Williams died following several weeks of illness. Morgan died in 1920. Although the company eventually disappeared, Morgan & Williams occupies an important place in Warren's industrial history. Its story illustrates how local craftsmen adapted traditional skills to rapidly changing technology, and how a carriage shop became part of the city's early automobile industry.
Today, the Trumbull County Historical Society preserves the home of Owen D. Morgan at 328 Mahoning Ave., now known as the Morgan History Center.