Background
John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore was born in 1732 in Tymouth, Scotland. He was the eldest son of William Murray, 3rd Earl of Dunmore, by his marriage to Catherine Nairne.
John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore was born in 1732 in Tymouth, Scotland. He was the eldest son of William Murray, 3rd Earl of Dunmore, by his marriage to Catherine Nairne.
In 1770 he was made governor of New York Colony, and in 1771 he was appointed governor of Virginia. At first he and his family were very popular. The revolutionary movement gathered force, however, and in 1772, 1773, and 1774 he dissolved the House of Burgesses for its activities in regard to colonial grievances. He strove with some success to organize the Virginia militia in order to safeguard the Virginia frontier against the Indians and to push its limits northward to the Ohio River. Though the campaign known as Lord Dunmore's War (1774) resulted in an Indian treaty highly favorable to Virginia, Dunmore's efforts gained him little but abuse, partly because of his personal holdings and seizures of frontier lands and partly because many colonists considered that the war was merely an attempt to divert their attention from the increasing tension with the mother country. In April 1775, when open rebellion had already broken out in Massachusetts, Dunmore moved part of the Virginia Colony's powder stores to the warship Magdalen. On June 1, after a riotous session of the House of Burgesses, he transferred himself and his family to the Fowey, off Yorktown, and declared his ship to be the seat of government. He also declared martial law and encouraged slaves to desert their masters, actions the Virginians deeply resented; on January 1, 1776, he bombarded and set fire to Norfolk. Dunmore returned to England in the same year.
In 1759 Dunmore married Lady Charlotte.