ROBERT M. MURRAY
R. M. Murray, the present incumbent of this office was elected in the fall of 1883, and commenced his official duty, with the 1st of January, 1883.
Robert M. Murray, the present auditor of Cass county, was born in Knox county, Illinois, March 14, 1845, his parents being Alfred H. and Eliza (Miller) Murray. When Robert was two years old his father died, aged forty-two years, and the family soon afterward moved to Bureau county, Illinois, in which county he was brought up and educated. In 1866, he came to Tama county, and remained four years engaged in farming. In 1870 he came to this county, locating in Massena township, where he owns a farm of three hundred and twenty acres, upon which his mother lives. He was married May 17, 1873, to Mary Chambers, a native of Warren county, Illinois. They have five children--Estella, George H., Raymond C. Roscoe and Inez. Mr. Murray was township clerk of Massena township one year, school treasurer eight years, justice of the peace one year, and was elected to the office of county auditor in October, 1883, assuming charge the following January. Mr. Murray responded to the call of his country, at the outbreak of the slave owners rebellion, and enlisted in the Eighty-ninth Illinois Infantry, in July, 1862, but upon going to Chicago to join his regiment was thrown out on account of his youth. This, however, did not dampen his ardor and patriotism, and in December of the year next following he again enlisted in Company H., Fifty-seventh Regiment, Illinois Infantry, under Colonel Hulbert and Captain William H. Gale. This regiment was assigned for duty in the Sixtieth Army Corps under General G. M. Dodge, but was subsequently transferred to the Fifteenth Army Corps, Gen. John M. Cohse commanding. They were prevented from participating in the battle of "Alatoona Pass" by the tearing up of railroad track by "Bushwhackers." He continued to serve in that corps until the close of the war and was engaged in many battles and skirmishes, having been with Sherman's army from Chattanooga to Kingston, and during that memorable march to the sea, thence up through the Carolinas to Washington and there participated in the Grand Review. He was mustered out with the regiment at Louisville in July, 1865, Mr. Murray is a member of the Masonic fraternity, belonging to Corinthian Lodge, No. 174, at Brooklyn, Iowa, and is a member of St John Chapter at Fontanelle. He is also a member of the G. A. R.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pg. 354-355.
