It was named in honor of General Daniel Morgan, who defeated the British at the Battle of Cowpens in the American Revolutionary War.

They were part of a wave of New England farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s.

Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the Erie Canal and the end of the Black Hawk War.

As a result, there was not enough land for every family to have a self-sustaining farm, and Yankee settlers began leaving New England for the Midwestern United States.

When they arrived in what is now Jacksonville there was nothing but dense virgin forest and wild prairie, the New Englanders laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes.

They brought with them many of their Yankee New England values, such as a passion for education, establishing many schools as well as staunch support for abolitionism.

Due to the second Great Awakening some of them had converted to Methodism and Presbyterianism while some others became Baptist, before moving to what is now Jacksonville.

[24] Morgan County has been reliably Republican from its beginning; the Democratic nominee has gained a plurality only 19% of the time (6 of 32 elections).