Justin Morgan was a U.S. horse breeder and composer. He was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and by 1788 had settled in Vermont. In addition to being a horse breeder and farmer, he was a teacher of singing; in that capacity he traveled considerably throughout the northeastern states. He died in Randolph, Vermont, where he also served as town clerk. Justin Morgan was the owner of a stallion named Figure, who became the sire of the Morgan horse breed. Morgan received Figure along with two other horses as payment of a debt. As Figure grew older, people began to recognise his skill in a variety of areas. Figure became a prolific breeding stallion; his descendants, still noted for their versatility and friendly personality, became the first American breed of horse to survive to the present. Figure's grave is marked by a stone in Tunbridge, Vermont. Justin Morgan's original 1798 gravestone is preserved in the Randolph Historical Society Museum. His burial site in the Randolph Center Cemetery is marked by a more recent stone.
Music
Morgan was a composer, best known for his hymns and fuguing tunes. While not so famous as those by William Billings, his works share the same characteristic roughness, directness, and folk-like simplicity. Publications containing his work include The Federal Harmony, and The Philadelphia Harmony, 4th ed.. The former collection includes what perhaps is his most famous composition entitled, "Amanda," a setting of Isaac Watts's poem based on Psalm 90. This hymn was the basis for a classical work written by American composer Thomas Canning in 1946, "Fantasy on a Hymn Tune by Justin Morgan." The tune "Despair," in the 1791 collection, cites the death of "Amanda" in a paraphrase of Alexander Pope's Ode on Solitude. Morgan's setting of Psalm 63, entitled Montgomery, was a popular fuguing tune, included among the 100 hymn-tunes most frequently printed during the eighteenth century. Four of his tunes, including Montgomery, are in the 1991 edition of The Sacred Harp; three more songs, including "Amanda" and "Despair," both grieving over the death of his wife, are in the Shenandoah Harmony. Its voice-leading, as is common in works by early American composers, contains numerous unabashed parallel fifths, giving the music a folk-like quality. Another work of his, the Judgment Anthem, is tonally adventurous, moving back and forth between E minor and E♭ major; it was the first anthem published in shape notes, appearing in Little and Smith’s The Easy Instructor, and many tunebooks thereafter.
