Financier. He will be remember as the patriarch of the Morgan financial dynasty. Along with George Peabody, he founded the merchant's bank of J. S. Morgan and Company. This bank was later changed to J. P. Morgan and Company by his son Pierpont, which was the predecessor of the financial giant of today, JPMorgan Chase. The bank was original located in London, England but the main office relocated to New York City in the last quarter of the 1800's. The London branch is still current under the name of Morgan Grenfell and Company. His ancestry was Welsh with his family coming to American during colonial times in 1636. His father was a prosperous merchant with diverse business interest in Hartford, Connecticut. At the age of sixteen, Morgan learned the merchant's business from his father with on-the-job experience before going to New York to learn banking. He became a successful partner in several businesses including J. M. Beebe and Company, one of the largest retail stores in Boston, Massachusetts. As the only son, Morgan inherited from his father, Joseph, $3,000,000 in 1847. On a European trip in 1853, he met George Peabody, an American banker in London, England. This trip changed his life as by 1854, he had moved to London to become a junior partner of Peabody in his banking firm. Ten years later with Peabody's retirement, the firm became J. S. Morgan and Company, and Morgan became the most influential banker in England. During the American Civil War, Morgan was the seller of United States War Bonds in England. His son, Pierpont, would telegraph the outcomes of battles prior to the newspaper informing the English. He was known as the "buy low, sell high" guy. He masterminded a cartel of wealthy men, with Andrew Carnegie being one, which lent France money in 1870 to aid in the continuation of the Franco-Prussian War after it appeared that France was going to be defeated. In the 1870's, Morgan had his genealogy researched and was led to believe that his mother, Sally Spencer, and the Fifth Duchess of Devonshire, Georgiana Spencer were distant cousins. With this, Morgan began an 25-year obsession and a chase for rightful ownership the Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Georgiana Spencer. It was finally purchased by his son Pierpont for $150,000 in 1901 and stayed in the family until 1994. In 1879 Morgan with his son Pierpont sold in London a sizable block of New York Central Railroad, which was owned by William H. Vanderbilt. Going against the banking family of Rothschild, he financed Cecil Rhodes in the 1880's for the control the diamond market in South Africa. Although there is more written about his son Pierpont, the Morgan Dynasty or the House of Morgan started with Junius Morgan. Biographical books written are the 1930 Lewis Corey's, "The House of Morgan," the 1966 Edwin P. Hoyt, Jr's "The House of Morgan," and more recently in 1987 Vincent Carosso's, "The Morgans: Private International Bankers 1854-1913." At the end of a winter vacation in Monte Carlo, he died after a carriage accident. He obtained a serious head injury and never regained consciousness. He made his mark on the world by being the first generation of a dynasty that lasted for 80 years in the world of finance.