McMurray Family (Click for Family Tree)

[How are we related? Will McMurray was the father of Dr. Edward A. McMurray, Herbert C. McMurray, and Maude (McMurray) Cook.]

How many baby pictures exist of you? How many of your children, if you have any? Do you have boxes and boxes of photos, documenting every single year and special event?

We are almost overwhelmed with photos these days, both physical and digital, but for the Frederick Asbury and Hannah Melissa (Benjamin) McMurray family, that was not a problem. Before the invention of small consumer cameras, a family had to go to a professional photographer to get a picture taken of the family or child, or utilize an itinerant photographer who carried all studio equipment with him/her. (Some photographers, especially out west, even outfitted a train car with a studio and darkroom! They would advertise their arrival date ahead of time, stop in a small town for a couple of days and take photos and print them, then move on.) Family historians lament the lack of photos available for our ancestors, but there just weren’t that many taken, plus they were destroyed by fires, floods, humidity, and/or heat. They may have been left behind when migrating to a new place, split among a dozen children, thrown out by descendants who did not care about them, or they exist somewhere, maybe in an antique store but have no name, date, or place on them, so we cannot know if the images are of those who shared their DNA with us to make us who we are today.

We are so lucky to have this photo, and know each of the persons in it! This is the earliest photo we have that shows the McMurray family or any of their children. Our subject today is William Elmer McMurray in his younger years, so we will focus on him in this and some upcoming posts, but childhood years would have been fairly similar for Will’s siblings too: Harry James McMurray, Addie Belle McMurray, Roy McMurray, and Ray McMurray.

Will, or Bill, as he was known in later years but maybe even as a child, was the oldest of the McMurray children. He was born 15 June 1874 in Newton or Marshalltown, Iowa, or may have actually been born out on the farm. His parents had married the year before, but we don’t know yet whether they had their own land at that point, were living on the farm of one of their parents, or lived in town and worked out on a parent’s (or someone else’s) farm.

Growing up on the farm as he most likely did gave Will the opportunity to have the freedom of country life yet he would have had the responsibilities of the eldest son of a farmer. Will was six years old in 1880 and attended school per the US Federal Census. His brother Harry, age 4, and sister Addie, age 2, were “at home” with Hannah, and F. A. was listed as a farmer, as were the other heads of household on the 8 June 1880 US Federal Census for Newton Township, Jasper County, Iowa. As F.A. McMurray was also an auctioneer who traveled all over the county, and sometimes even to other counties, Will probably went with him at times as a helper and to learn the business.

A big change was coming to the McMurray family- by 1885, when Will was 10, the Iowa State Census noted that Will’s father, Frederick Asbury McMurray, had a second-hand store, and they were living in East Newton, at “Out Lot 26, Newton.” Will’s Aunt Mary McMurray (his father’s sister), who was 27 and single, was also living in the household, and working as a dressmaker. (She never married, and lived to be 100 years, 2 months old!) The big move to town would have been quite a lot of work for the whole family, though since F.A. was an auctioneer, selling off their farm equipment, grain, and livestock would have been a bit easier than calling in a stranger. Whatever was left over of household goods could be put in the second-hand store, and Will and his siblings most likely did a lot of carrying to and fro with the move.

We have the above picture from about 1887- the date estimate is calculated from ages of the children, with baby Roy being born 29 October of 1886, we can guess he is over 3 months old so the picture was likely taken in 1887. Then we have a gap of about five years, from 1887-1892, when we know very little about what was going on with the family, other than some articles about Will’s father conducting auctions around the county. (Sadly the 1890 US Federal Censuses were destroyed.) By 1892, Will was about to open a new chapter of his life, and it is there that we will pick up the story on another day.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. See references within article.

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Original content copyright 2013-2018 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

McMurray Family (Click for Family Tree)

This obituary was posted on Iowa GenWeb by the late Donna Sloan Rempp. Her family was kind enough to give us permission to post it on the blog.

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Well known Auctioneer Dies From Stroke Thursday

Funeral services were held Sunday afternoon for Frederick A. McMurray, well known Jasper county auctioneer and one of the leading Democrats of the county, who died last Thursday evening at his home in Newton at 7:15, following a stroke of paralysis, which he received the previous Sunday afternoon as he was returning from the funeral of a friend, Mrs. C. L. Good.

Frederick A. McMurray was born Aug. 28, 1859 in Bedford county, Penn., son of Henderson and Mary Ann (Horn) McMurray, the third child in a family of 12 children. At the age of two years he came west with his parents and three children crossing the Mississippi river at Muscatine. The family settled on a farm south of Tipton in Cedar county, where they remained until 1869.

The McMurray family then moved on west again, this time settling in Jasper county on a farm about two and one half miles north west of Newton. Fred McMurray here continued his education, which was started while he was living in Cedar county, finishing at the age of 18 years and starting out for himself.

At first he spent his time breaking the raw prairies of the rich corn belt through Jasper county, later in 1872 taking up grading work in the Rock Island right of way between Newton and Reasnor.

He purchased his first piece of real estate in 1874, when he negotiated for an 80 acre tract of land about three miles northeast of Newton on old No. 14, which he owned at the time of his death. He lived on this farm until 1922, farming for himself, putting on many improvements.

In addition to being one of the leading auctioneers of his time, Mr. McMurray was connected with the Jasper County Agricultural Society for many years as marshal, and even in the last years he was considered as an advisory part of the governing organization.

Mr. McMurray is survived by his wife, and eight brothers and sisters: Joseph of Fort Madison; Mary, Mrs. Ella Aillaud, and Henry of Newton; Mrs. Sam Raugh of Exeter, Calif.; James T. of Rodondo Beach, Calif.; David of Valley Junction; and Mrs. Margaret Maytag of Marshalltown. One brother John and two sisters Mrs. Newt Edge and Emma, preceded him in death.

He is also survived by one daughter, Mrs. Forrest Gillespie of Oak Park, Ill., and four sons, William, Harry J., Roy and Ray of Newton; three grandchildren, Dr. E. A., Mrs. Maude Cook, and Herbert of Newton; and two great grandchildren, Edward A. Jr., and Mona Lynette Cook of Newton.

Source: Newspaper Unknown; __ December 1929 (Newton Union records say he d. 12 December 1929)

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Fred’s wife was Hannah Melissa (Benjamin) McMurray, but she was not actually named in his obituary.

Family records do state his death was 12 December 1929; his headstone lists only his birth and death years.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. IA US GenWeb– http://iagenweb.org/jasper/

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Original content copyright 2013-2016 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

One hot, muggy, August visit to Newton, Iowa, included the moment I found my passion for genealogy. It was in the late 1960s, and my grandmother drove me and my tag-along younger sister all over the county in her old, immaculate black Dodge to visit family and learn our family history. Distant cousins and elderly aunts pulled out shoeboxes, family bibles, etc., for us to see the obituaries, letters, and other treasures that had been passed down from generation to generation. The family we visited knew so much family history, but as a young teen,  I knew so little of how to record it well. I had read one very old genealogy how-to book found at our local library, but did not know about citing sources or provenance. However, I did see these items with my own young eyes, and my sister and I copied many pieces by hand, using notebook paper and a purple Flair pen- the latest cool writing instrument and one of the first felt-tip pens, I believe. I was enraptured with the stories the family told- I loved the “Little House on the Prairie” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, so this was heaven, to know my own family traveled in wagon trains across the prairie and ploughed the fertile soils of Iowa, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. There were no copies or scanners in Newton, Iowa at that time, so it was laborious to copy all, but I am so glad that I have these items, as some, like the following, might be gone forever, if we had not copied them.

Part of a letter from Aunt Ibe Raugh to Aunt Mary McMurray:

“… I am also enclosing in same package two old silver spoons and a breast pin that Huldah wanted us to have as there are four of us. Now I have seen them, I am sending them to you three girls.

They were brought from England by Mary Proctor when she came to the states with her father, General Proctor, at the close of the war. This was father’s mother. The pin had been a clasp to a neck chain but was fitted with a pin and had been used as such for about one hundred years. When Mary died she gave the pin to her daughter Sarah, Huldah’s mother, who took care of her during her last sickness.

The spoons were also handed down at the same time.

Huldah also states that James McMurray, father of William McMurray, father of Henderson McMurray, came to America in 1779.

Well girls, I have had these things for some time but I thought perhaps some of you would come out and I could give them to you all. Huldah did not know how old they really are but we know they were keepsakes one hundred years before the close of the War of England.”

We met a lot of relatives but at the time I couldn’t place them all into a family tree until I learned more about that. I am not sure which war was “the War of England” nor what the spoons or pin looked like; I believe all I saw was the letter or a copy of it.

I wish I had taken notes as our relatives spoke of their parents and grandparents- what wonderful stories they were! I was busy copying as they spoke, as many were very elderly and would be too tired if we stayed too long.

‘Aunt Ibe’ (sometimes called “Iba”) is Hepzibah Jeanetta McMurray (1865-1954) who married Samuel S. Raugh (b. 1860) and they lived in Orange, California in 1906 and also in Exeter California. ‘Aunt Mary’ is Mary McMurray (1856 – 1956) who never married and lived in Newton, Jasper Co., Iowa in 1906 and probably most of her adult life; she lived to be over 100 years old. They are just two of the thirteen children of Henderson McMurray and Mary Ann Horn.

‘Huldah’ is a cousin to the McMurray girls, as she was the daughter of Sarah McMurray _____, (married name unknown) who was Henderson McMurray’s sister. (Both were children of James McMurray & Mary Proctor.) There was another sister, who became “Mrs. C.C. Meyers of Waverly, Iowa” who is mentioned in Henderson McMurray’s 1906 obit- this is probably Minnie, born about 1820, as there is a “FC” and “Minnie Meyers” listed in the 1905 Iowa State Census in Waverly.

[Edited 15 Jan 2018– Mrs. C.C. Myers is actually Catharine C. (McMurray) Myers, not Minnie McMurray.]

The letter was probably written after 1940 and before 1954, as one of the 5 sisters who lived to adulthood died in 1940, and Ibe died in 1954, so there were just the “four of us” still living during that time span.

What mysteries do I hope to solve about this letter? I would like to know who Sarah McMurray married, and thus what Huldah’s maiden name was, plus who Huldah married. I only have one census- 1850- for William McMurray and his wife Mary Proctor McMurray. I have been unable to find any information about “General Proctor” or James McMurray- there are SO many McMurrays in Pennsylvania during that time period and it is challenging to separate them to know which is our ancestor.

I would also love to know what the pin and spoons look like- I do hope that someone in the family still has them and knows the story that goes along with them. They are a wonderful legacy.

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Hand copied section of letter owned by author.

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

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