Murphy, John W.

MURPHY, WILDMAN, RUSSELL, SWIGART, WOODS, BEATTY, TOWNSEND, ZINK, TREVITTS, FENNER, BENNETT, MILLER, ATWOOD, BLACKWOOD

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/13/2009 at 13:32:02

John W. Murphy is recognized as one of the prominent and influential citizens of Jasper County. He is proprietor of the Elmwood Stock Farm, and is a leading citizen of Buena Vista Township. He is also engaged in merchandizing in the village of Murphy, and is serving as postmaster of that place. His name is inseparably connected with the history of locality, and therefore we take pleasure in presenting this record of his life to our readers.

Mr. Murphy was born in Highland County, Ohio, May 12, 1825, unto Daniel and Cynthia (Wildman) Murphy. The father was a native of Frederick County, VA, born October 3, 1798. The mother was born in Fayette County, PA, July 24, 1796, and was of English descent. Her family belonged to the Society of Friends, and her ancestors settled near Philadelphia shortly after William Penn located in the Keystone State. The Murphy family is of Irish lineage.

The subject of this sketch was reared in his native county, of which his parents were very early settlers. His father had there located in 1818, and his mother located in that community in 1815. John Murphy acquired the greater part of his education in the public schools eh-Highland County, and subsequently engaged in teaching for a number of terms in the Buckeye State. He embarked upon his business career as a merchant in 1852 at Russell Station, Ohio, where he carried on operations along that line until 1855.

That year he resumed farming, and also became Postmaster of Russell. In 1856 he exchanged his Ohio farm for the Elmwood Stock Farm, which he now owns. He has two hundred and thirty acres of good land under a high state of cultivation, and the improvements upon it make it one of the desirable and valuable places of the neighborhood. He located thereon in 1857, and has since there resided.

Mr. Murphy was married September 19, 1847, to Miss Ann E. Russell, a sister of S. G. Russell, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work. Eight children were born unto them, of whom five are yet living: Laura A., wife of John Y. Swigart, of Lincoln, NE; John W., who is now in Utah; Cynthia P., wife of A. F. Woods, who is living in Buena Vista Township; Hamer E. and Bower T. Those deceased are Zilla J., Roswell T. and Seymour C.

Mr. Murphy has been honored with the office of Trustee of the township, and has served as Justice of the Peace. In politics he is a supporter of the Prohibition Party and is a member of the Methodist Protestant Church, having served as Secretary in its annual conference for many years.

Socially, he was connected with Newton Grange No.1, the first grand lodge organized in this state, and is a charter member of Buena Vista Grange No. 594, P. of H. He has been a member of the Iowa State Grange since 1876, and has served for six consecutive years as its Secretary. He is at present serving as Master of the home lodge, which convenes in a hall over his store in Murphy.

Our subject is a warm advocate of the temperance cause, and does all in his power for its promotion. He is always found on the side of right, and his influence and support are ever given to those enterprises, which are calculated to promote the best interests of the community. In his business dealings he has been very successful, his good management, enterprise, and fair and upright course winning him a handsome competence, which numbers him among the substantial citizens of the community. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA Page 193
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Murphy, J. W.

Everybody in Jasper County knew J. W. Murphy. Tall and rugged as an oak, with kindly face and great booming voice, Mr. Murphy was as unique a specimen of sturdy American manhood as the great State of Iowa affords.

The first Murphy of which we have record in the direct, line was John, who lived and died in Ireland. He married Mary Campbell, a Scotch highland lassie and a Presbyterian, he being a Catholic. After they were married they compromised their differences in religion by joining the Church of England.

Hugh Murphy, second son of this union, born May 5, 1746, came to this country on the "Three Brothers," a sailing vessel, being three months on the way on account of rough weather, finally landing in Philadelphia in January 1782. He was a sympathizer of the American colonists and while back in Ireland refused to fight in the king's army against them. After coming to this country he worked at odd jobs, freighting, etc., finally settling in Virginia, where he was united in marriage to Mary Beatty.

Daniel, third son of this pair, born October 3, 1798, was the: father of the subject of this sketch, John W. Murphy. Soon after the birth of Daniel, the Murphy family removed to Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Later, in 1817, they again moved to Highland County, Ohio, settling there in a thick woods, the son, Daniel, helping to clear the land and working in the collier works in Kentucky.

June I, 1824, he united in marriage with Cynthia Wildman, daughter of John and Rebecca (Townsend) Wildman, a native of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, born July 24, 1796. To this union were born seven children, namely: John Wildman Murphy, the subject of this review, born May 12, 1825, and died August 20, 1911; James, born November 20, 1826, died a few years prior to this writing at Pittsfield, Illinois; Catherine, born April 30, 1830, died in January, 1834; Clarissa, wife of James Zink, born January 7, 1833, died in Jasper County, Iowa; Townsend, born May 22, 1835, (un-married) resides in Jasper County, Iowa; Cynthia A., wife of John Trevitts, born October 11,1838, resides in Newton, Iowa; Daniel W., born November 16, 1841, resides in Jasper County. He enlisted in an Ohio regiment in the great Civil War conflict, and was honorably discharged at its close. All the children were born in the same log cabin, in a forest in Highland County, Ohio, where nightly was heard the scream of the panther, the howl of the wolf, and other weird and primitive sounds of the wilderness. The mother died March 5, 1862, in Highland County, Ohio, and Daniel Murphy, a few years later, married a Mrs. Nancy Fenner. She died in 1871, and then Mr. Murphy came to live with his children, who had all preceded him to Iowa. He died in Jasper County, February 25, 1890, at the: age of eight-two years.

The subject of this review was united in marriage, September 19, 1847, to Ann Eliza Russell, daughter of Samuel and Mary P. Russell. She was a native of Virginia, born in Buckingham County, February 21, 1830. They were married at what is now Russell Station in Highland County, Ohio. Mr. Murphy was, as he put it, three-eighths Irish, one-eighth Highland Scotch and four-eighths English. His mother's people were Quakers clear back from the beginning of that religion. She joined the Methodist Episcopal Church after she was married. Mrs. Murphy's father died in Jasper County in 1876, while visiting here with his children. Her mother was born in 1809 and died in 1897. Mrs. Murphy was one of seven children, but four of whom are now living, namely: John W. Russell, living in Newton; Samuel G., living in Newton; and Mary J., wife of Caleb Bennett, living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. One brother, the youngest, Robert H., served in the War of the Rebellion. He enlisted in California and died in a hospital in San Francisco from sickness contracted during the war, soon after being discharged.

To Mr. and Mrs. Murphy were born eight children: Laura Alice, born June 12, 1854, wife of John Y. Swigart, now living in Mexico; John W., born May 16, 1857, a Presbyterian minister at American Fort, Utah, married Mertie Sterns, and this couple have one child, a girl; Cynthia P., born October 11, 1859, wife of Alec Woods, lives in Jasper County, and they have four boys; Zella J., born November 23, 1862, married Jefferson Miller, died March 17, 1888, in Nebraska, left three children, two boys and a girl; Zilla, Mrs. James Warren, died on the Kansas and Nebraska line and is buried in Nebraska; Clement Seymour, born July 14, 1864, died in infancy; Hamer Elsworth, born August 29, 1866, married Mary Atwood, now lives in Newton, a graduate of chiropractic healing, has one child, a boy; Roswell Trimble, born May 27, 1869, died in infancy; Bower Thrap, born October 20, 1870, married Edith Blackwood, lives on a farm in Jasper County, Iowa. They have five children, three boys and two girls.

On October 17, 1857, Mr. Murphy with his wife and family, consisting at that time of two children, removed from Ohio to Jasper County, Iowa. He and his brother, James, bought three hundred acres of land, paying eight dollars per acre for the same. This land was afterwards divided, and Mr. Murphy afterwards added to his portion until he owned two hundred and ten acres.

Probably no other man in Jasper County took the part in public affairs that Mr. Murphy did. He served as Township Clerk, Trustee, Justice of the Peace, Road Supervisor, and was a member of the board of school directors for eighteen years consecutively. In April 1858, when he was elected secretary of the school board, the Township was without a schoolhouse and there were no sub-districts. John C. Scott and Mr. Murphy together evolved the plan of placing a school house in the center of every four adjoining sections where practical, the first one in the County being the Slagel Schoolhouse, in Hixon's Grove. This plan was afterward followed throughout the County.

Mr. Murphy was one of the organizers of the Jasper County Farmers Mutual Association, being its first secretary, which office he held for fifteen years. He was secretary of the Iowa State Grange six years and four years as traveling lecturer for that organization. Both he and his wife were charter members of the Methodist Protestant Church, which was organized in Hixon's Grove in 1867, Mr. Murphy helped build it and has acted as its secretary and treasurer and was honored by every office in the gift of the Church. On several occasions he was representative of the Iowa conference to the general conference of the United States of that Church; and was the secretary of Iowa state conference of the Church for the past forty years and it was at one of its meetings that he was taken ill and died.

He had been postmaster of Murphy post office since its establishment in 1891. He was the railroad agent of this station, also owned its one store. He was a member of Newton Lodge No. 39, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He was made a Mason at Lynchburg, Ohio, June 24, 1850. He was also a member of the chapter and council of that order.

In politics Mr. Murphy had been a Democrat, ("hard money") Greenbacker and Prohibitionist. Later he was a Socialist. Mr. Murphy had been an independent voter for the last forty years, openly championing the right at all times as he saw it. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 924