BIO: James MURRAY, Dauphin County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by JAWB Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/dauphin/ http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/dauphin/runk/runk-bios.htm _______________________________________________________________ Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers. Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. Runk & Company, 1896, pages 174-175. _______________________________________________________________ MURRAY, JAMES, son of William Murray, was born about 1729, in Scotland; died February 15, 1804, on his farm adjoining the borough of Dauphin, Dauphin, county, Pa. For this farm he entered an application in the Land Office in 1768. In 1775 he was chosen to represent Upper Paxtang township in the Committee of Safety for Lancaster county and attended the meetings of the committee in Lancaster on the 8th, 9th and 10th of November. At this time he was a captain of a "company of foot in the Fourth battalion of associators in the county of Lancaster." On the fourth of July, 1776, at a military convention representing the fifty-three battalions of associators of Pennsylvania, he was present as captain. With John Rogers and John Harris, on the 8th of July, 1776, by appointment of the Provincial Conference, he superintended the election at Garber's Mill for the Sixth district of Lancaster county, to choose delegates to the convention that assembled on the15th of the month, and which framed the first Constitution of the Commonwealth. During the remainder of that and the following year he was almost in constant active military service with his company. His company, a roll of which appears in Dr. Egle's Notes and Queries, First Series, p. 7, and in Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, vol. xiii., p. 310, went into the Continental service in July or early in August, 1776. In a return of the troops quartered in and near Philadelphia, made August 27, of that year, it is reported sixty strong. It participated in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He commanded one of the companies of the Tenth battalion, Lancaster county militia and was with the expedition up the West Branch in 1779. The exposures to which Captain Murray was subjected during the Revolutionary struggle brought on an attack of rheumatism, from which for many years prior to his death he was a constant sufferer. He married Rebecca McLean, a native of Scotland, who died August 7, 1795. The remains of both rest, side by side, in the old Dauphin cemetery.