William Murphy Sumter

Background

William S. Murphy was born in 1796, in South Carolina.

Career

Murphy was a practising lawyer with a taste for politics and military affairs, a taste so strong that his place in the history of the Ohio bar is not an important one. His oratorical powers, however, were considerable, and it is said that he was in demand as counsel for the defense in criminal cases and that his friends liked to refer to him as "the Patrick Henry of the West. "

His only public service in Ohio was as one of the commissioners who in 1835, after the "Toledo War, " remarked the disputed portion of the Ohio-Michigan boundary. A brigadier-general in the militia, he was always known as General Murphy.

The story is told that, at first a Democrat, he became soured by his failure to obtain a nomination for Congress in 1832. At any rate, he was a supporter of Harrison in 1836 and 1840 and after that a supporter of Tyler.

In 1843 Tyler, by a recess appointment, made him minister extraordinary to Central America and charge d'affaires to Texas. The Central-American mission amounted to little, but for a year he was the representative of the United States in Texas. He was not, however, entrusted with much responsibility, though serving as a useful instrument in the promotion of the annexation plans of Tyler and his secretaries of state. Neither the Washington nor the Texan government kept him informed as to what was going on, so that he, an ardent annexationist, believed that Great Britain's power over President Houston was complete. In fact the burden of his dispatches was the dark machinations of the British, and in this way they were equally acceptable at Washington and at the capital of Texas.

In January 1844 negotiations for annexation were promising after Secretary Upshur had assured Houston, through Murphy, that a clear two-thirds of the Senate was in favor of a treaty. Houston at once obtained from the eager Murphy a promise of military protection by the United States pending the conclusion of the affair, and Murphy went so far as to order an American vessel to Vera Cruz to warn other naval units that they would soon be needed to repel a Mexican invasion of Texas. This was a little too much, and Washington informed the charge that he had pledged the president to action unwarranted by the Constitution. However, by the time this dispatch reached Texas, on April 11, 1844, the treaty of annexation was signed. Soon the treaty came before the Senate and was rejected, while the confirmation of Murphy's appointment was refused at the same time. Within a few weeks he died on July 13, 1844, of yellow fever at Galveston, Texas.

Achievements

• William Sumter Murphy was a noted minister extraordinary to Central America and chargé d'affaires to the Republic of Texas, who worked diligently toward the annexation of Texas to the United States.

Politics

Politically, William Murphy was at first a Democrat but later supported Whig candidates William Henry Harrison and John Tyler.

Connections

In 1821, William Sumter Murphy married Lucinda Sterret.

Wife:

Lucinda Murphy (Sterret)