Alachua County FlArchives Biographies.....Murphree, Albert A. April 29, 1870 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 February 9, 2014, 11:12 am

Source: The Lewis Publishing Co., Vol II, page 10 , 1923
Author: The History of Florida: Past & Present  

        MURPHREE, ALBERT ALEXANDER president of the University of Florida since 
1909, and a leader in the educational affairs of the state for over a quarter 
of a century, was born at Walnut Grove, Alabama, April 29, 1870, son of Capt. 
JESSE ELLIS and HELEN (CORNELIUS) MURPHREE. His grandfather was a large planter 
and slave owner at Murphrees Valley in Alabama. Capt. JESSE MURPHREE served as 
a captain in the Confederate army and was all through the war, being wounded at 
the battle of Shiloh. He was a merchant after the war and also a farmer, and 
served as county commissioner.
	ALBERT A. MURPHREE  was the fifth in a family of ten children. His 
boyhood ambition was in the direction of teaching, and with little help from 
the outside he acquired a liberal education, teaching, selling books and doing 
other work to defray his expenses while in college and university.  He was a 
student in the Walnut Grove College of Alabama from 1880 to 1887, began 
teaching in the rural schools of Tennessee in the latter year, and subsequently 
won by competitive examination a scholarship in the Peabody Normal College at 
Nashville, Tennessee, where he was a student during 1890-92. He graduated with 
the A. B. degree from the University of Nashville in 1894, and in 1902 was 
awarded the Master of Arts degree by the university. The honorary LL.D. degree 
was bestowed upon him by Rollins College in Florida in 1909 and by the 
University of Alabama in May, 1919.
	Doctor Murphree prior to coming to Florida was superintendent of 
schools at Cullman, Alabama, principal of Summit Institute in that state, and 
for two years principal of the City High School at Cleburne, Texas. He came to 
Florida and took the chair of mathematics in the Florida State College in 1895. 
From 1897 to 1905 he was president of that college, and was president of the 
State College for Women from 1905 to 1909. Doctor Murphree was inducted into 
the office of president of the University of Florida July 1, 1909.
	Doctor Murphree has a great variety of interests outside the realm of 
scholarship and education. He satisfies his mechanical turn of mind largely by 
automobiling, is an enthusiastic fisherman and golfer, was one of the 
organizers and is a director of the Gainesville Golf and Country Club, was 
first president of the Gainesville Rotary Club, served as president in 1907 of 
the Florida State Teachers' Association, was vice president in 1922, and 
formerly a member of the executive committee of the National Association of 
State Universities, is a member of the Alachua County Motor Club, and his time 
and efforts are heartily enlisted in every movement for making Gainesville a 
real city in material improvements and as a center of culture and education. He 
was a Four Minute Speaker during the World war. He is superintendent of the 
Baptist Sunday School and for four years was president of the District 
Association, is a Knight Templar Mason and was on the Regional Board as a 
director during the building of the Carnegie Library, and has since been 
chairman of the board. He is a member of the National Educational Association, 
is a Kappa Alpha and for several years was editor of the Florida School 
Exponent.
	July 27, 1897, Doctor Murphree married Miss JENNIE HENDERSON, daughter 
of Col. JOHN A. HENDERSON, of Tallahassee, Florida.  Mrs. Murphree died March 
26, 1921. There are four children : Miss ALBERTA, who was educated in the 
Florida State Women's College, in the Goucher College at Baltimore and the 
Peabody Conservatory of Music; MARTHA, a graduate in 1922 from the Florida 
State College for Women; JOHN ALEXANDER, attending the University of Florida; 
and ALBERT ALEXANDER, Jr., a pupil in the Gainesville High School.


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