| Notes |
- McMurphy FAMILY ORIGINS
By Daniel McMurphy
http://www.fidnet.com/~mcmurfy1/
In the Spring of 1718 a body of Scotch-Irish from Northern Ireland sent a petition, signed on 26 March 1718(1), by 319 representative men, to Governor Shute of Massachusetts Bay in the New World requesting land for settlement. The McMurphys were among this body. The Rev. William Boyd was dispatched from Ulster to Boston with the petition as an agent of the Scotch-Irish to express their desire on settlement in New England. The petition read as follows:
"We whose names are underwritten, Inhabitants of ye North of Ireland, Doe in our own names, and in the names of many others, our Neighbors, Gentlemen, Ministers, Farmers, and Tradesmen, Commissionate and appoint our trusty and well beloved friend, the Reverend Mr. William Boyd, of Macasky, to His Excellency, the Right Honorable Collonel Samuel Suitte, Governour of New England, and to assure His Excellency of our sincere and hearty Inclination to Transport ourselves to that very excellant and renowned Plantation upon our obtaining from His Excellency suitable incouragement. And further to act and Doe in our Names as his prudence shall direct. Given under our hands this 26th day of March, Anno Dom. 1718."
Governor Shute was in the third year of his administration of the colony. He was an old soldier of King William, a Lieutenant-Colonel under Marlborough in the Queen Anne wars and had been wounded in one of the great battles in Flanders. The McMurphy family first arrived in America in August 1718(2) when five ships(3) sailed into the little warf at the foot of State Street in Boston with one-hundred and twenty Scotch-Irish families from Northern Ireland. Ships recorded as arriving from Londonderry in 1718 include the Maccullum (or McCallom) with 100 passengers and linen, the William and Elizabeth with passengers and provisions, and the Mary and Elizabeth with 100 passengers and linen (Dickson, 1966). Boston was a town of approximately 12,000 people at this time. Many of the families were natives of Scotland whose heads had passed over into Ulster during the short reign of James II. Several of these families were well off, including the Cargills. John McMurphy, Esq. (1682-1755) had married Mary Cargill. These families, or their fathers and neighbors, had felt the edge of the sword of Graham of Claverhouse in Argyleshire, Scotland (Scotch-Irish Society, 1889).
Others in the body were the descendents of those who had participated in the original colonization of Ulster dating from 1610. Still others included descendents of those Scotchmen and Englishmen that Cromwell transplanted at the middle of the century to replace those wasted by his own sword. A few native Irish families were also mingled in. They were escaping the economic and religious oppression there and the fear of their lives from the warring religious factions. On one of the ships was James(4) McMurphy with his wife and his family of three sons, John, Archibald, and Alexander, and daughters, Jean, Elizabeth, and Mary. John McMurphy, Esquire, the eldest son, was born in Ireland in 1682 and was accompanied by his wife, Mary Cargill, who was also born in Ireland, and at least five children all of whom were born in Ireland. The elder McMurphy, James, had migrated from the area of Argyleshire or Dumfries, Scotland to Northern Ireland as a young man (about 1680). He had participated in the seige of Londonderry in 1689 and was supposedly primary in closing the gates of the city during the seige. Several references written in the 1890's (Willey, 1895,1896) indicate that cousins of the McMurphy clan could still be found near Ballycastle, County Antrim at that time.
NOTE:
Several references refer to him as Alexander and several refer to him as James.
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Davis Uriah I | Born 1707
Abt 1660 - 1755 (~ 95 years)