Isaac MURPHY (FAMOUS)

Isaac Murphy

October 16 1799 - September 8 1882

Teacher Attorney Union Activist Governor

Isaac Murphy was born near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania to Hugh and Jane Williams Murphy. His father’s ancestors came to the United States from Dublin, Ireland between 1737 and 1840. His father, Hugh, was a paper manufacturer and died when Isaac was a young child. The executor of his Hugh’s will made sure of Isaac’s education and then squandered the rest of the estate and committed suicide. According to family information, Isaac graduated from Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar April 29, 1825. Murphy began his career as a teacher and moved to Clarksville, Tennessee where he met and married 16 year old Angelia Lockert, July 31, 1830. Isaac was 14 years older then his bride. Angelina’s family were slave holders and disowned her when she married Isaac, as he was against slavery. When their first daughter was born, 1934, they moved to Fayetteville, Washington County, Arkansas. He surveyed land, taught school and practiced law. Due to his great interest in education, he was appointed the Chairman of the board of visitors to the educational institution Far West Seminary.

He was elected as Washington County treasurer in 1836 and served until 1838. He was then elected in 1846 to the lower house of the Sixth General Assembly and was reelected in 1848 serving as a Democrat. During the early 1850’s many of the banks in Arkansas failed and caused Isaac’s fortune to be in great jeopardy, He joined the great mass of those heading for gold fields in California. While he was gone in 1851 one of his notes came due and he lost his 120 acre farm. Coming home empty handed he made other plans. In 1854 he moved his family to Huntsville, Madison County, Arkansas. In 1856 was elected state senator in the Eleventh General Assembly. In 1860 Angelina, his wife died at their home.

In February 1861, Murphy was elected on the Unionist ticket to the state convention to consider secession. He voted against taking action. Then voted, after the firing on Fort Sumter, to refer the issue of secession to the voters. Murphy and 5 others voted against the secession ordinance. Even after a call for unanimity on the ordinance he would not break his promise to the voters. He voted against Arkansas’s acceptance of the new Confederate Constitution, and he did not sign the new state constitution (Constitution of 1861) that concluded the convention’s work.

While attending his work there he lived with his daughter and son-in-law in Little Rock. His son in law was killed in the Confederate service. He then returned to Huntsville. After the Union came into Arkansas in 1862 he and some other avowed Unionists, fled to General Samuel Curtis’s army in Missouri and he served as an aide to General Curtis. Murphy was able to get his daughters our of Huntsville, but Louiza, 24 and Laura, 22, died along with the 4 year old child of a third daughter, in St Louis, Missouri in early 1863. His two other younger daughters, Geraldine and Angelina were sent to a female seminary in Illinois for safety.

In September if 1863 he returned with his widowed daughter and infant son to Little Rock with General Frederick Steel’s Union Arm. As the Unionist in Arkansas began to clamor for a Union Governor, Murphy’s name alone was mentioned as Governor. With the ratification of a new constitution he was inaugurated on April 18, 1864. He urged peace and the necessity of education. With the collapse of the Confederacy may fled to other states, Mexico and Brazil but many came home to Arkansas. Murphy was generous with pardons. The former Confederate legislature were booted from the government. Many former Union men joined with the African American Community to organize the Republican Party for the first time in Arkansas. A new constitution, once again, was written and new officials chosen. On June 22, 1868 Arkansas we readmitted to the Union and on July the office of Governor was turned over to the newly elected governor, the former Union General Powell Clayton. Returning home to Huntsville, Murphy continued to farm and practice law. He was called upon on occasion to serve as a special judge. At his death he was laid to rest in the Huntsville cemetery at 80 years of age. Ironically, his house site later became the retirement home of segregationist governor Orval Faubus.

In a special letter to Reverend Lyman Abbot in 1865 he had laid out his thoughts on a new Arkansas: after declaring that “Industry, Education and Christian morality are the pillars of freedom,” he averred: “Kindness will conquer the most stubborn and reform if reform is possible.” Murphy was held in high regard during his gubernatorial days, and though denigrated by historian Thomas S. Staples, Murphy was better described by David Yancey Thomas as “a man of sound common sense, of good intentions, and of scrupulous honesty.”

For additional information:
Carter, Dean G. “Some Historical Notes on Far West Seminary.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 29 (Winter 1970): 345–360.

Donovan, Timothy P., Willard B. Gatewood Jr., and Jeannie M. Whayne, eds. The Governors of Arkansas: Essays in Political Biography. 2d ed. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1995.

Isaac Murphy Papers. Kie Oldham Collection. Arkansas History Commission and State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.

Moneyhon, Carl. The Impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Arkansas: Persistence in the Midst of Ruin. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2002.

Smith, John I. The Courage of a Southern Unionist: A Biography of Isaac Murphy, Governor of Arkansas, 1864–68. Little Rock: Rose Publishing Company, 1979.

Staples, Thomas S. Reconstruction in Arkansas, 1862–1874. New York: Columbia University Press, 1923.

Bio by Tootie Dennis tootied@suddenlink.net

*Photo Courtesy of hawkinsdonna@att.net

Contributed on 8/5/10 by tslundberg
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