Santa Clara County
Biographies
JOHN
MARION MURPHY
John Marion Murphy, after whom the
incredibly rich mining camp of Murphys, in Calaveras
County, was named, was a son of Martin Murphy, Sr., of the
Murphy-Townsend-Stevens Party of 1844 and a son-in-law of James Frazier Reed of
the Donner Party, of 1846. He was born
near Frampton, Quebec, about 1824. Supposedly a staunch Irish Catholic, but there is still some
question as to the extent of his devoutness.
Along with his people, who acquired huge
acreages of land in Santa Clara County, Murphy was a man of considerable means and
first Treasurer of the county. He
afterward held the offices of Sheriff and County Recorder, as well as City
Councilman of San Jose. In the spring of
1848, he and his brother Daniel caught the gold fever in its most virulent form
and were among the first Santa Clara County citizens to reach the
diggings. In July of that year, they
discovered on Angel's Creek the diggings that have since been variously
referred to as Murphy's Diggings, Murphy's Camp, and just Murphys. Many stories, some of them pretty
far-fetched, have been told of the fabulous fortune they took out of this
place. Among other things, it was said that they put Indians to work for them
and brought out whole pack-mule loads of gold.
In 1858, Murphy joined San Jose Lodge No. 10
and remained a member of it till 1867, when he withdrew. In his later years, business reverses and
injudicious investments left him in uncomfortably straitened circumstances,
which apparently continued till his death in 1892, at the age of sixty-eight.
Transcribed
5-28-17 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
Source: “One Hundred Years of Freemasonry in
California Vol. 1” by Leon O. Whitsell, Page 14.
Publ. by The Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of
California, 1950.