For those who know North Carolina history, it can be confusing that the benefactor of the Morehead Foundation is not the John Motley Morehead who was twice elected governor of North Carolina (serving from 1841 to 1845). That John Motley Morehead — the first John Motley Morehead — was the grandfather of the Foundation's benefactor. Known as "the Father of Modern North Carolina," Governor Morehead was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1817 and devoted all of his adult life to his dream of ensuring "the freedom of the mind, the freedom of enterprise and the unfettered equal opportunity of the people of our State."

John Motley Morehead was tireless in his efforts to improve education, communication, and transportation in North Carolina. He was the founder and first president of the North Carolina Railroad; a trustee of the University of North Carolina for thirty-eight years and the founder and first president of its Alumni Association (of which John Motley Morehead III was president exactly 100 years later); and the founder of Edgeworth, a women's college in Greensboro. During his tenure as governor, Morehead recommended state institutions for the training of the blind and deaf and for care of the mentally ill. The Governor Morehead School for the Blind was named in his honor.

In a speech on December 4, 1912, the historian R. D. W. Connor said, "Once in an age appears that rare individual, both architect and contractor, both poet and man of action, to whom is given both the power to dream and the power to execute. Such men write themselves deep in their country's annals and make the epochs of history. In the history of North Carolina, such a man was John M. Morehead."