partnership in his firm; he accepted against his father's wishes. Within a year, the business struggled sufficiently that Joseph Morgan had to bail his son out and dissolve the partnership. Soon thereafter, Morgan's father secured him a new partnership at Morris Ketchum's private bank on Wall Street, renamed Morgan Ketchum & Co. The firm did a general banking and brokerage business and had a few foreign clients. Howe Mather & Co. In January 1836, Morgan's father bought him a partnership in the Hartford wholesale dry goods house of Howe Mather & Co., the largest in Hartford. He remained at the firm until his father's death in 1847. During the Panic of 1837, Morgan traveled the South in an effort to collect the firm's debts, in specie if possible but often in payments of cotton. He continued traveling to collect debts and purchase cotton through the ongoing depression into the 1840s, continuing to grow his reputation as a businessman in Hartford. In 1845, his father invested an additional $25,000 in the firm on Junius's behalf. Soon after inheriting a fortune from his father's estate in 1847, Morgan was named senior partner at the rechristened Mather Morgan & Co. In 1850, he took a trip to London to meet with some of that city's leading merchant bankers, in hopes that he might expand his own firm into foreign trade and banking. J. M. Beebe, Morgan & Co. In fall 1850, Morgan arranged to go into business with James M. Beebe of Boston, a young merchant with a growing import business. One of the firm's two junior partners was future Governor of New York and U.S. Vice President Levi P. Morton. By February 1851, Morgan sold his stake in Howe & Mather for $600,000 and moved to Boston's Pemberton Square. He was soon among the nation's financial elite. The firm gave Morgan access to global markets, exporting and financing cotton and other goods shipped from Boston harbor. Peabody & Co. On May 15, 1853, at the recommendation of James Beebe, Morgan visited the American banker George Peabody in London. Peabody, who was in poor health, offered Morgan to join his banking house as a junior partner, to be made the senior partner upon Peabody's retirement in ten years. Peabody pledged the bank could continue to use his name and if necessary, some capital. Morgan demurred but eventually accepted, joining the firm as junior