Mark Anthony Murphy died 1879

MURPHY, COONEY, MCCULLOUGH

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 5/9/2016 at 22:07:06

Dubuque Herald –Jan. 3, 1879

DIED
MURPHY-In this city, Jan. 1, 1879, at 5 a.m. at the residence of his mother, 400 Iowa Street, Mark Anthony Murphy, of consumption, 18 years, 8 months and 14 days. Burial at Key West yesterday (Thursday).
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Dubuque Herald –Jan. 3, 1879

Death of Mark A. Murphy
Sadness reigned in the house of Mrs. Murphy, No. 400 Iowa Street, on New Year Eve morning, scarcely had the reverberations of the glad bells announcing the the birth of another year, died away, before the Ruler of all closed the eyes of a promising son in death. The peals of the funeral chimes in honor of Aurora in her new habiliments tell upon the ears of the bereaved family like the knell of parting day. Mark Anthony was no more. His spirit had passed over the shinning river, and while the moist eyes of his relatives and friends gazed upon the laminate clay that lay stretched before them, his image as in life, with its promising brightness, tilted before like a shadow.

Mark had long been a sufferer with consumption, and although his death was not really unexpected, lingering hope buoyed his spirits and that of his family feeling that the destroyer would be relinquish his hold upon his young life. But he was stricken down in the 19th year of his age. He visited Denver, Colorado last summer, but that genial climate failed to benefit him, and he returned to his friends and home, preferring to be here than in a far off land among strangers. He arrived last November, and slowly approached the grave, although his mother and friends did all in their power to prolong his life, which was so promising for future honor and usefulness. His funeral took place on Thursday morning at 9 o’clock from St. Raphael’s Cathedral where a requiem mass was celebrated, to Key West Cemetery. He was encased in a rich and beautiful casket elegantly mounted and bearing an appropriate inscription. The church contained a large number of his friends, and while the last sad rites of the dead were performed, tears of regret dimmed nearly every eye.

The pallbearers were his four cousins – M. J. T. J., Frank and M. Cooney, M. F. McCullough, of Holy Cross, and Matt McCullough of Farley. The cortege was very large notwithstanding the thermometer was 20 degrees below zero, and we are requested by his mother and friends to earnestly thank them for their sacrifice in attending the funeral, and for their kindness in sickness and trouble. If the mere thanks of a bereaved heart swelling with gratitude will require them, a disconsolate mother freely offers it.

Mark Murphy was an exemplary young man, born and raised in Dubuque, and loved by all who knew him; of a kind and forgiving disposition, and a devout Christian. He was bright in intellect, and if he had been spared, would have made a man capable of holding high positions in society. May his heart broken mother, sisters and brother, and sorrowing friends, be consoled with the thought that Mark is now an ornament in the golden, eternal, shining city where the righteous never sorrow.