Archibald D. Murphey

Life and Orange County connections

Storylines this person is part of, in date order. Each has its own page.

Dated events connected with this person, in date order. See these 19 dated events in the chronology →

During their lifetime

1. 1799–1801 Archibald D. Murphey graduates from the university and joins its faculty Archibald D. Murphey graduated with honors from the University at Chapel Hill in 1799 and was hired at once as a tutor. The next year he became professor of languages, one of three faculty members, and also served as librarian before resigning to study law in Hillsborough. Place: Chapel Hill, University of North CarolinaSearch the index · NCpedia (Dictionary of North Carolina Biography): Murphey, Archibald DeBow
2. 1799 Students rise against the faculty and beat principal Gillaspie In the term before the 1799 commencement students beat Gillaspie, waylaid and stoned tutor William E. Webb and threatened Caldwell and Archibald Murphey, and for a week exercises stopped. Three leaders were dismissed and the faculty offered to resign, and by that November Caldwell was chosen again to head the university. People: Joseph Caldwell, Archibald D. Murphey Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: James Smiley Gillaspie, William Edwards Webb, November CaldwellSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 155
3. November 5, 1801 Archibald D. Murphey marries Jane Armistead Scott and settles at the Hermitage After leaving the University to read law in Hillsborough under William Duffy, Murphey married Jane Armistead Scott on November 5, 1801, and made his home at the Hermitage, her father's farm on Great Alamance Creek about eighteen miles west of Hillsborough, in the part of Orange County that is now Alamance. He built his law practice around the Hillsborough courthouse. Place: Orange County, The Hermitage (now Alamance County) · Also named: Jane Armistead Scott, John Scott, William Duffy · Also mentions: Hillsborough courthouseSearch the index · Internet Archive: William H. Hoyt, ed., The Papers of Archibald D. Murphey, vol. 1 (NC Historical Commission, 1914)
4. December 1805 Trustees repeal the monitor ordinance that set off the student secession The 1805 law made student monitors swear to report every breach of the rules, and forty-five students signed a remonstrance and left when it was only softened. The board repealed it unanimously in December, but few of the seceders came back. People: Archibald D. Murphey, Duncan Cameron, William Polk Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 204
5. 1808 Thomas Ruffin qualifies to practice law and settles at Hillsborough Ruffin finished his legal studies under Archibald D. Murphey in Rockingham County and qualified to practice law in 1808. He moved to Hillsborough on June 9, 1809, and built his practice there; William A. Graham later read law with him. People: Thomas Ruffin, Archibald D. Murphey, William A. Graham Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Thomas Ruffin 1787-1870 (G-11) · Also: J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, ed., The Papers of Thomas Ruffin, vol. 1
6. 1809 The university divides the state into ten escheat districts with its own attorneys To collect the restored escheats, the trustees named attorneys in ten districts, among them Archibald D. Murphey for the district beginning with Chatham, paid by commission on sales and collections. The same year the legislature gave the university estate balances unclaimed for seven years. People: Archibald D. Murphey Place: Chapel HillSearch the index · Documenting the American South: Kemp P. Battle, History of the University of North Carolina, vol. I (1907), p. 150
7. 1812–1818 Archibald D. Murphey serves Orange County in the state senate Archibald D. Murphey was elected to the legislature from Orange County in 1812 and sat in the state senate until 1818. There he proposed a publicly financed system of schools in a report he finished on November 29, 1817, and in 1819 he followed it with his memoir on internal improvements. Place: Orange CountySearch the index · NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources: Archibald Debow Murphey ca. 1777-1832 (G-104)
8. 1816 Senator Archibald D. Murphey of Orange moves for a legislative committee on public schools Following Governor Miller's 1816 message, Orange County senator Archibald D. Murphey won a joint committee to study public education. Its report led to a second committee, also under Murphey, whose plan Pender credits as the groundwork of the later state school system. Place: Orange CountySearch the index · DigitalNC: Irene Oliver Pender, A History of Orange County Schools, 1752-1983 (1983), p. 17
9. 1817 Archibald D. Murphey submits his Report on Education to the General Assembly While state senator for Orange, Murphey laid before the Assembly a plan for primary schools, academies and more state support for the university. The book calls it the first definite plan for public education offered in North Carolina. Place: Orange CountySearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 89
10. 1818 Archibald D. Murphey becomes a Superior Court judge Archibald D. Murphey left the state senate, where he had represented Orange since 1812, to become a judge of the Superior Court in 1818. Place: HillsboroughSearch the index · Lefler and Wager, Orange County, 1752-1952 (1953), p. 146
11. about 1820 A Federal house is built on West Queen Street for Eliza Hasell Eliza G. Hasell bought the lots from Archibald D. Murphey on July 27, 1819, and the two-story house with pedimented one-story wings, modeled on a plate in Robert Morris's Rural Architecture, was built for her about 1820. After her marriage to William S. Plumer she sold it to Samuel Simpson, and his daughter Mary Simpson Nash's family held it into the twentieth century. People: Archibald D. Murphey Place: Hasell-Nash House, 116 West Queen Street, Hillsborough · Also named: Eliza Garden Tart Hasell, William S. Plumer, Samuel Simpson, Mary Simpson NashSearch the index · National Register: Hazel-Nash House nomination (1971), pdf p. 3 · Also: Hillsborough Historic District National Register Additional Documentation (2014); The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 21, 1949, p. 2
12. March 25, 1820 Judge Murphey sentences William B. Sparrow to hang for the murder of John Hunt At the spring term of Orange Superior Court, Judge Murphey sentenced William B. Sparrow, held in the county jail for the murder of John Hunt, to be hanged in May. Place: Court house, Hillsborough · Also named: William B. Sparrow, John HuntSearch the index · Hillsborough Recorder, March 29, 1820, p. 3

After their death in 1832

Later events: estates and burials, and the buildings, honors and histories that remember them.

1. by July 2, 1903 A monument is raised over Archibald D. Murphey's grave in the Presbyterian churchyard By the start of July 1903 a monument had been erected over the grave of Judge Archibald D. Murphey in the Presbyterian churchyard at Hillsborough; his grandson Judge Archibald Aiken of Danville, Virginia, came to see it. People: Archibald D. Murphey Place: Presbyterian churchyard, HillsboroughSearch the index · Orange County Observer (Hillsborough), July 2, 1903, p. 3