Cherokee Co. OK Archives: MURRELL, George Copyright c 2005 by. Terrell White e-mail: terrillwhite1978@aol.com This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives. ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/cherokee/cherokee.html Jeff Smith, Cherokee Co. Archivist, GunneyJay@sssnet.com *********************************************************************** GEORGE MURRELL AND THE HOME Reprinted from Pioneer’s of Park Hill By Norine Allen Torkleson 1985 George Michael Murrell, son of John Murrell and Elizabeth (Dietrich) Murrell, was a white man, born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1808. His father was a well-to-do merchant. The family had a store and a cotton and tobacco plantation in Virginia and later acquired a sugar plantation at Bayou Goula, Louisiana. They owned a considerable number of slaves. At the time of the forced removal of the Cherokees from Georgia to the Indian Territory, George Murrell was engaged in the mercantile business in eastern Tennessee in partnership with Lewis Ross, brother of Chief John Ross. Shortly before the removal, he was married to Minerva Ross, the oldest daughter of Lewis Ross. Consequently, he came to Indian Territory with the Ross family in the fall of 1840. For the first few years after their arrival, Murrell and his wife lived in a log house a few hundred yards southwest of the present Murrell Home. Then, about 1844 or 1845, he built this better home and furnished it, in part, with the best of furniture from France. Each room was heated by a commodious fireplace; the water supply was a spring at the edge of the grounds. But with a bountiful supply of timber nearby, and having plenty of negro slaves, the heating and water problems were of little consequence. In 1855, the first Mrs. Murrell passed away. He later married Amanda Melvina, a younger sister of his first wife. There were no children by the first marriage, but four by the second: two boys and two girls. Minerva is buried in Ross Cemetery, Park Hill. Murrell was a great lover of the chase, kept a large kennel of fox hounds, and entertained quite lavishly. The place came to be known as “Hunters Home”. He kept his smokehouse filled with choice meats and his cellar stocked with excellent wines. It was not uncommon for the young military officers from Fort Gibson to meet the Cherokee belles of the Female Seminary for social functions at the Murrell Home. Murrell built the first brick store in Tahlequah, which stood just south of the Liberty State Bank (Now BancFirst), and he was Tahlequah’s first postmaster. With slave labor, he cultivated a large acreage of virgin land near Park Hill. He drove back and forth to this business in Tahlequah in his carriage drawn by his “fiery team of four”. When the Civil War came on, Murrell went back to Virginia and raised a Cavalry Troop for the Confederacy, of which he became a Major. With the exception of one short visit, he never returned to the Cherokee Nation, but spent his time between the Virginia and Louisiana plantations until his death in 1894. Most of the Murrell furniture was shipped back to his home in Virginia. This place is one of the few old homes of the Cherokee Nation that survived the carnage of the Civil War, and remains today.(The story has been handed down that since Mr. Murrell was a staunch southern sympathizer, that the Confederates did not destroy the home, and since Mrs. Murrell was a northerner, the Union forces would not destroy the mansion. (Reprinted from Tahlequah and the Cherokee Nation, C. W. “Dub” West, 1978) Under Cherokee law, a property holder was required to reside in the Nation. Hence, at the termination of the Cherokee Government, the Murrell House and grounds were allotted to other members of the Ross family. The property went from one ownership to another until, in 1948, the State of Oklahoma took it over and began the process of restoration. Some of the original furniture and belongings have been sent back here recently by surviving members of the family. Part of the John Ross furniture has been placed here. Friends and societies have contributed representative pieces and the restoration is still going on under supervision of the Division of State Parks of the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department. Thousands of visitors come here each year to see this lovely old, historic home at Park Hill.