Background

Henry C. Murphy was born on July 5, 1810, in Brooklyn, New York. His paternal grandfather, Timothy Murphy, an Irish physician, emigrated to New Jersey before the Revolution. John G. Murphy, his father, a skilled mechanic and millwright, married Clarissa Runyon of an old Dutch family of Princeton, New Jersey, and about 1808 established himself in Brooklyn.

Education

Henry graduated with honors from Columbia in 1830, studied law with the Hon. Peter W. Radcliffe.

In 1860 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Columbia.

Career

After admission to the bar, he began to practise in Brooklyn. In 1834 he became city attorney, and the following year he joined John A. Lott, then the ablest lawyer in Brooklyn, in partnership. Shortly afterwards John Vanderbilt was admitted, and the firm entered upon a long and prosperous career. All of its members were able politicians, and so completely did they control the local affairs of the Democratic party that in the words of Stiles, the Brooklyn historian, to write a history of the firm "would be to write the political history of Brooklyn from 1835 to 1857".

Murphy, at the age of thirty-one (1842) was elected mayor of Brooklyn. Before his term was completed he was sent to Congress, where he served from 1843 to 1845, and again from 1847 to 1849. At the state constitutional convention of 1846 he contended vainly for a notably advanced program of city charters, taxation, and government, and repeated his efforts, without effect, at the constitutional convention of 1867 - 1868.

In 1852, when the Virginia delegation introduced the name of Franklin Pierce into the deadlocked National Democratic Convention, with the result that he was nominated and subsequently elected, it was only after Pierce had won the delegation's preference over Murphy by one vote.

In 1857 he was appointed minister to the Netherlands by Buchanan, and served until recalled by Lincoln. The period was a quiet one in the relations of the two countries until the secession crisis, when Murphy communicated to the Dutch government a notably able statement of the Federal viewpoint.

Upon his return he was elected without much effort on his part for six successive terms in the state Senate, 1861 - 1873. He urged support of the war by the Democratic party in speeches at the state convention, and before the Tammany Society. At the National Democratic Convention of 1868, as chairman of the committee on resolutions, he battled vainly against the Greenbackers and their Ohio program. The same year he lost a bitterly fought battle at the Democratic state convention for nomination for governor, being supported by the opponents of John T. Hoffman, the Tammany candidate.

He was the party's unsuccessful nominee for the United States Senate in 1867 and 1869, and his hopes for the same office in 1875 were dashed when Governor Seymour supported his henchman, Francis Kernan. During the entire period after his return from The Hague Murphy's political career was handicapped by the fact that he belonged to a minority faction of a minority party.

In the meantime he had been turning more and more to business and scholarly pursuits. He aided in securing many local improvements for the city. His interest in the development of Coney Island led him to accept the presidency of the Flatbush & Coney Island Railroad and to build Brighton Beach Hotel at its terminus. He drafted and secured the passage of the legislation necessary for the building of Brooklyn Bridge, and was president of the private company which, in the beginning, conducted the enterprise, and also of the corporation which succeeded it. He relentlessly fought all opposition, and worked against both natural and legal obstacles, remaining at his post "when almost any other man would have retired in disgust". While studying law he had served as the chief editorial writer of the Brooklyn Advocate and as a rising party leader he contributed political articles to the United States Magazine and Democratic Review and to the North American Review.

Having persuaded a few friends of the desirability of establishing a Democratic newspaper in Brooklyn, he issued in October 1841, the first number of the Brooklyn Eagle, of which he remained proprietor and associate editor for almost a year, placing the paper upon a firm foundation. His increasing interest in early American history led him to collect, with rare discrimination, a library of Americana, which at his death was rivaled by only two or three collections in the country.

His chief contributions to American history were his translations of works relating to New Netherland, especially The Representation of New Netherland (1849), from the Dutch of Adriaen van der Donck, Voyages from Holland to America (1853), from the Dutch of D. P. deVries, and the valuable journal of Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, which he discovered in manuscript in an Amsterdam bookstore, purchased, and translated for the first volume (1867) of the Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society. A unique piece of work was his Anthology of New Netherland; or Translations from the Early Dutch Poets of New York. His Henry Hudson in Holland (1859) is still valuable, having been reprinted with notes, documents, and bibliography by Wouter Nijhoff in 1909. In his Voyage of Verrazzano (1875), however, he unfortunately took the view that Verrazzano's claims of discovery were unfounded. Henry C. Murphy died on December 1, 1882, and was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery.

Achievements

• Henry Cruse Murphy was a respected Brooklyn lawyer, Democratic Party politician, U. S. Minister to the Netherlands (1857-1861), officer of the New York Bridge Company, and historian.

Works

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  • The representation of New Netherland : concerning its location, productiveness and poor condition

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • Catalogue of the Magnificent Library of the Late Hon. Henry C. Murphy ... Consisting Almost Wholly of Americana or Books Relating to America ..

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Henry Hudson in Holland; An Inquiry Into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Remarks of Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Kings County, upon that portion of the message of His Excellency Governor Seymour, relating to arbitrary arrests, delivered in the Senate, March 5, 1853

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Journal of a Voyage to New York: And a Tour in Several of the American Colonies in 1679-80

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Celebration at Tammany Hall, on Saturday, July 4, 1863. Including the Oration, by Hon. Henry C. Murphy, the Poem, by Henry Morford, Esq., the ... and Others. Pub. by Order of the Society

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Speech of Hon. H. C. Murphy, of New York, on Slavery in the Territories

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Anthology Of New Netherland; Or, Translations From The Early Dutch Poets Of New York, With Memoirs Of Their Lives

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Jacob Steendam, Noch Vaster: A Memoir Of The First Poet In New Netherland...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Catalogue of the magnificent library of the late Hon. Henry C. Murphy

    (Catalogue of the magnificent library of the late Hon. Hen...)

  • The Voyage of Verrazzano A Chapter in the Early History of Maritime Discovery in America

Membership

Henry C. Murphy was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from New York's 2nd district from March 4, 1843 to March 3, 1845.

Henry C. Murphy was one of the founders of the Long Island Historical Society (today the Brooklyn Historical Society).

Connections

On July 29, 1833, Henry C. Murphy married his cousin, Amelia, daughter of Richard Greenwood of Haverstraw, New York. The couple had two sons.

Father:

John Garrison Murphy, Sr.

Mother:

Clarissa Murphy (Runyon)

Wife:

Amelia Murphy (Greenwood)

colleague:

John A. Lott

colleague:

John Vanderbilt

John Vanderbilt was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

Son:

George I. Murphy

Son:

Henry Cruse Murphy, Jr.

Brother:

John Garrison Murphy, Jr.