John Murphy (Alabama politician) explained

John Murphy
Order:4th
Office:Governor of Alabama
Term Start:November 25, 1825
Term End:November 25, 1829
Predecessor:Israel Pickens
Successor:Gabriel Moore
State2:Alabama
District2:5th
Term Start2:March 4, 1833
Term End2:March 3, 1835
Predecessor2:District created
Successor2:Francis Strother Lyon
Office3:Member of the Alabama House of Representatives
Term3:1820
Office4:Member of the Alabama Senate
Term4:1822
Birth Date:1786
Birth Place:Columbia, North Carolina, U.S.
Death Date:September 21,
Death Place:Clarke County, Alabama, U.S.
Resting Place:Gosport, Alabama, U.S.
Party:Democrat

John Murphy (1786 – September 21, 1841) was the fourth Governor of the U.S. state of Alabama, serving two terms from 1825 to 1829.

Biography

Early life

John Murphy was born in 1786 in Robeson County, North Carolina. He attended South Carolina College, now the University of South Carolina, where he was a member of the Clariosophic Society.[1] Among his classmates at South Carolina College were John Gayle and James Dellet. Gayle also became Governor of Alabama while Dellet became a U.S. Congressman from Alabama.[2] Murphy graduated in 1808.

Career

He became a clerk at the South Carolina Senate. He was a trustee for the University of South Carolina from 1808 to 1818.[3]

In 1818, he moved to Alabama and was elected to the Alabama House in 1820 and the Alabama Senate in 1822. He was elected Governor of Alabama in 1824, and in 1827 he was elected for a second term. He represented Alabama in the United States House of Representatives from 1833 to 1835.

Personal life

Under the date of April 2, 1834, John Quincy Adams records in his diary that Congressman James Blair "shot himself last evening at his lodgings ... after reading part of an affectionate letter from his wife, to Governor Murphy, of Alabama, who was alone in the chamber with him, and a fellow-lodger at the same house." Diary (New York: Longmans, Green, 1929) p. 434.

Death

He died in 1841 in Clarke County, Alabama. Murphy was buried in Gosport.[4]

Notes and References

  1. http://digital.library.schreiner.edu/sldl/sl/153index.html South Carolina College: Clariosophic Society, Catalogue of Members in 1842, Lanham Digital Library of Hill Country History at Logan Library
  2. http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1466 John Murphy (1825-29) in the encyclopedia of Alabama
  3. Web site: Alabama Governors: John Murphy . Alabama Department of Archives and History . 2012-06-27.
  4. News: Gov. John Murphy . 1905-09-07 . The Clarke County Democrat . 1 . . 2023-04-08.