Background
Isaac Murphy was born on October 16, 1799, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Hugh and Jane Murphy.
Isaac Murphy was born on October 16, 1799, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Hugh and Jane Murphy.
In 1830 he settled in Tennessee, where he taught school. In 1834 he moved to Arkansas and taught in Fayetteville and the surrounding country.
In 1835, he was admitted to the bar and for several years taught, practised law, and surveyed public lands.
He was elected to the legislature in 1848 but went to California in 1849 and remained until 1854.
On returning to Arkansas he moved to Huntsville, where he conducted the Huntsville Female Seminary. His impress upon the educational system of northwest Arkansas was good.
In 1856 he was elected to the state Senate to fill a vacancy, and thereafter he devoted himself to the law and politics.
In 1861 he was elected a delegate from Madison County to the state convention which had been called to consider secession. A majority of the delegates, including Murphy, opposed secession, but they allowed the secessionists to put through a resolution submitting "secession" or "cooperation" to the people to be voted upon in August.
After the bombardment of Fort Sumter the convention was called together again and voted secession with only five negative votes (May 6). Four of the five members were won over by the secessionists but Murphy remained impervious to all appeals for unanimity. He remained in the convention, however, until it adjourned in June. He then returned to his home, but the situation became unbearable and after the battle of Pea Ridge he fled (April 1862) to the Union army commanded by Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, leaving his family at Huntsville.
Murphy was made a member of General Curtis' staff and remained with the Union army until the capture of Little Rock, September 10, 1863. He then became active in forming a loyal state government.
President Lincoln issued an order on January 20, 1864, for an election to be held on March 28, but the loyalists had already anticipated him and a convention, assembled at Little Rock on Jan uary8, elected Murphy provisional governor. Lincoln then directed the military authorities to cooperate in the establishment of a government.
In March the revised constitution was adopted by popular vote, mainly in the counties north of the Arkansas River, and Murphy was elected governor. His program included cooperation with the Federal authorities to crush the Confederates, the abolition of slavery, the education of the masses, and the rebuilding of the state by encouraging the immigration of people with capital. Confederate sympathizers gave him much trouble and he appealed to Lincoln several times. He reported that loyalists were dying of starvation, but he could not help them. There was no money in the treasury when he was elected, but he conducted the government economically, paid expenses, and had $167, 221. 27 in greenbacks and bonds in the treasury when the Carpet-bag convention met in 1868.
In 1866 former Confederates captured the legislature and passed numerous laws and resolutions distasteful to him, but he was never swept into the camp of the Radical Republicans and thereby regained to a large extent the confidence and respect of his opponents. When displaced by the new government he returned to his home in Madison County and remained there until his death on September 8, 1882, passing his last days in obscurity.
Isaac Murphy was not a forceful leader, but he was honest and straightforward and held tenaciously to his opinions.
On July 31, 1830, Isaac Murphy married Angelina A. Lockhart in Tennessee. Six daughters were born of this marriage.