Elizabeth Morgan's life was anything, but ordinary.

She was born in 1913 in New Egypt to her Quaker parents. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother, a schoolteacher. Morgan went to college at St. Mary's in Bryn Mawr and graduated with two degrees in history. After graduation, she went to teach at Ogontz Boarding School for Girls near Willow Grove, PA. Every night after supper, she would take her girls out for a five mile hike.

Later, Morgan married Reverend Luman Morgan of the local Christ Episcopl Church and settled down to a more home-centered lifestyle. However, Morgan soon began itching for more to do. She started writing articles on plants and local lore, and at her husband's request, wrote several historical volumes for the church about its history in New Jersey. She also became involved with local nature and conservation clubs and organizations.

As they say, the rest is history. Morgan, a self taught botanist, spent the rest of her life crusading around South Jersey against development plans and sprawl, which inevitabily destroyed habitats and killed endangered species. In the early 1980s, Morgan even traveled to San Fransisco to find a specimen of the Pine Barrens gentia. The plant was taken from New Jersey by the king's botanist before the Revolutionary War. A sample had been sent to England, but was later recovered and bought by the San Fransisco Museum of Natural History. Despite her determined efforts, Morgan returned home empty handed. The museum was involved in preparations to move and could not find her specimen.

More recently, Morgan was working a variety of projects. She spent a considerable amount of time fighting to preserve the Forked River Watershed and to keep developers away from the New York Lighthouse Camp for the Blind. With her help, the Forked River Mountain Coalition also obtained $14,000 in grants for studies in the Barnegat Bay Estuary Program and the Trust for Public Land. Furthermore, after tireless research Morgan developed a process to save America's near-extinct chestnut trees. She helped start an initiative to graft healthy chestnut trees from China with those few remaining in the United States.

Suffering from Lyme disease, Morgan had to cut her beloved nature field trips short. Her most recent excursions were limited to 2 mile hikes. Elizabeth Meirs Morgan passed away in 2005 and will be remembered for her lifetime of work to preserve the Pine Barrens.