San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JAMES GRANT MURRELL, M. D.
An honored pioneer physician of
Tracy, Dr. James Grant Murrell located here during 1891, when a few cottages
constituted the town. His first office
was in a small shack on Eighth Street, and during an epidemic of diphtheria, in
the handling of thirty severe cases, Dr. Murrell lost but one patient. Dr. Murrell served as city health officer,
and city physician, and when it was decided to make two offices, he was
retained as city physician. He was born
in Georgetown, South Carolina, on March 11, 1843, and while a young lad was
thrown on his own resources. Leaving
home with five dollars in his pocket, he made the trip to Charleston in three
days. There he found employment in an
office. Near the close of the Civil War
he reached New York City, where he found a friend who worked for the U. S.
Government, and there Dr. Murrell secured a job at five dollars per day making
coffins for the burial of the soldiers, later removing to Boston,
Massachusetts, where he remained for the next thirteen years. After attending the centennial of the Battle
of Bunker Hill held in Boston in 1875, he removed to the Pacific Coast and
located in San Francisco and three years later he entered the Eclectic Medical
College in Oakland, California, and completed his three year course in
1881. He opened his first office at
Lincoln, Placer County, California, and remained there for one year, when he
removed to Kern County, active in the practice of his profession there until
1891.
The marriage of Dr. Murrell united
him with Mrs. Alice (Minter) Wilkes, a daughter of Monroe and Louisa (Arnold)
Minter. Her father was a sturdy pioneer
of Kern County, who crossed the plains with ox teams from Shelbina, Missouri,
when he was seventeen years of age; he spent several years in the mines and
then located in Kern County where he ranched near Glennville. Her mother came to California across the
plains with her parents in 1854, coming by way of Los Angeles, then to Kern and
Mariposa counties. Both of Mrs.
Murrell’s parents lived to a fine old age, and are well remembered by the old
residents of Bakersfield, as the father conducted a general merchandise store
there for several years. By her first
marriage Mrs. Murrell had three children.
Ida, now Mrs. B. E. Grady of Stockton, has two children, Jack and
Bobbie; Charles R. is married and resides in Bakersfield and is chief deputy
county clerk of Kern County; Mrs. Clytelle Hewitt
resides in Stockton and has two children, Leslie and Nadine. Mrs. Murrell is past officer and an active
member of the Tracy N. D. G. W. and a member of the Tracy Rebekahs, and has
just received the degree of Chivalry of that fraternity. During the recent war she was active in the canteen
work and in the local Red Cross chapter.
Both Dr. and Mrs. Murrell have been liberal with their time and means
and have assisted in building churches and other local institutions. Dr. Murrell volunteered his services during
the late war, and on November 9, 1918, he was enrolled by the Secretary of War,
Newton D. Baker, as a member of the Volunteer Medical Service Corps, having
been authorized by the Council of National Defense.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
971-972. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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