Alameda County Biographies

EDWARD MURPHY

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


  
(deceased).  Born in County Monaghan, Ireland, in the year 1829, and was the son 
of Dennis Murphy, a surgeon in the British army, who fought in the War of 1812.  
When twelve years of age he came alone to St. John�s, New Brunswick, and 
subsequently moving to Milford, Worcester County, Massachusetts, there found 
employment in a general merchandise store, where he remained until the fall of 
1849.  In that year, so dear to the hear of the pioneer, he started for 
California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and after suffering shipwreck on the 
coast of Mexico, ultimately arrived in San Francisco in January, 1850.  Finding 
employment in Marin County until 1854, in the spring of that year he went to 
Massachusetts, but shortly after returned to the Pacific Coast, and locating in 
the Bay City, engaged in the livery business as proprietor of the Pioneer 
Stable.  There he remained until the spring of 1856, when he moved to Alameda 
County and pitched his tent in Washington Township not far from the Alviso 
school house.  There he purchased a ranch about two miles north of where now 
stands the town of Decoto, and engaged in farming until 1863; but selling out at 
this time he transferred his habitation to Alvarado and was in business there 
until 1869, farming near that place for the subsequent two years.  In 1871 he 
arrived in Murray Township and leased a portion of the Dougherty Ranch where he 
dwelt until March, 1876.  He then moved to Dublin and engaged in hotel-keeping 
until his decease on October 23, 1881.  Married, April 12, 1855, Miss Margaret 
Crowley, a native of County Cork, Ireland, by whom he left five children, viz.:  
Mary E. (now Mrs. O. R. Owens), Edward D., Francis A. (now Mrs. T. H. 
Thorndyke), Daniel J., John W.
 
History of Alameda County, California�, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883, p. 951