Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 704
JOSEPH H. MURPHY

JOSEPH H. MURPHY, a farmer residing on section 21, of Union Township, has been a resident of Harrison County since 1875; he came in the spring of that year to St. John's Township, where he leased a farm one year and then rented in Union Township. One year after he removed to the last named township, he purchased the farm he now lives upon, which consisted of eighty acres, which is now under a high state of cultivation. This place cost him $13.75 per acres.

Mr. Murphy was born in Washington Township, Putnam CO., IN, September 15, 1837. He was the son of Isaiah and Margaret Williams Murphy. The father was a native of Maryland, and the mother of Ohio. They reared a family of eleven children, of whom our subject was the third-Sarah A., deceased, Nancy, Joseph H, Lenox K., Jane, Mattie, Hannah, and William.

Joseph H. Murphy was united in marriage April 15, 1866 to Lydia E. Wilson, a daughter of William A. and Martha F. Wilson, who had ten children, names as follows: Mary J., Sarah E,. Lydia E., Daniel M., John A., Nannie, William S., J.H., Alice and Martha A.

Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are the parents of ten children-Mattie A., Mar L., Maggie V., Della S., James L., Carrie N., William W., Nettie A., Jennie F., Rolland E.

Politically, Mr. Murphy exercises his right of franchise by voting with the Democratic party. In religious matters, Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are believers in the Universalist faith.

Mr. Murphy remained at home with his parents until twenty-two years of age, working on his father's farm. he then hired out on a farm for which he received $18 per month. We next see him driving an ox-team from the Hoosier State to a point near Des Moines, Iowa. He returned to Indiana that fall and split rails for his father during the winter. The next four years of his life was spent at work on a farm for one man. Again we see him working as a railroad-track repairer, and from there we trace him through the next four years, the summers of which was spent on a farm and the winters of which he spent in getting out stave timber, which brought him up to the time he came to Harrison County.

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