Clay County, West Virginia Biography of BENJAMIN F. MURPHY This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 477-478 Clay BENJAMIN F. MURPHY is a man of thought and action, and has demonstrated in many helpful ways his fine civic loyalty, with the result that his influence has been large and benignant in his home community, his native county and in connection with governmental affairs in West Vir- ginia. He is essentially one of the most progressive and influential citizens of Clay County, and is a leading busi- ness man of the village of Clay, judicial center of the county. Mr. Murphy was born at Ivydale, this county, July 29, 1873, and is a son of Henry H. and Sarah J. (Dawson) Murphy, and he is a scion of one of the oldest and most honored families of what is now West Virginia. His great- great-grandfather, Patrick Murphy, was born and reared in Ireland, and upon coming to America became the first settler in the Elk River Valley of what is now the State of West Virginia. After having profited by the advantages of the public schools of his native county Benjamin P. Murphy became a student in the Concord State Normal School at Athens, West Virginia, where he well fortified himself for the peda- gogic profession. For thirteen years he was a successful teacher in the schools of Clay County, and he has continued to retain a most lively and helpful interest in educational affairs. For a time ho was a teacher in a private school at Clay, or Clay Court House, which is still the railroad designation of the judicial center of Clay County. Mr. Murphy gained valuable magisterial experience by four years of effective service in the office of justice of the peace, and as county superintendent of schools for four years he gave a most able and progressive administration, besides which he was a member of the state grading board on teach- ers' licenses under the administrations of State Superinten- dents Miller and Shawkey. Thereafter he served one term as representative of his native county in the House of Delegates of the West Virginia Legislature, in which he made a characteristically excellent record, he having been chairman of the committee of education and a member of other important committees of the Lower House. At Clay he established the mercantile business which is conducted under the title of Murphy & Company and which is one of the important enterprises of the village. Mr. Murphy lias had much of influence and leadership in the councils and campaign activities of the republican party in this section of the state, and he has been specially prominent in the furtherance of educational work and service in his home county, he having been the prime factor in the movement which resulted in the establishing of the Clay County High School, of which board he is the secretary. He is a director of the Elk Valley Bank at Clay and of the American Grocery Society in the City of Charleston, besides having other capitalistic interests of important order. He and his wife are zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for the past several years he has been Clay Connty secretary in connection with the International Sun- day School Association. He is a past master of Clay County Lodge No. 97, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and a past noble grand of Pisgah Lodge No. 180, Independ- ent Order of Odd Fellows. On the llth of January, 1892, was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Murphy and Miss Emma F. Friend, and of the nine children of this union seven are living: Myrtle N. is the wife of Dr. Thomas H. Fast; H. Mark graduated from the high school and thereafter attended the Mountain State Business College at Parkersburg, and also the Uni- versity of West Virginia; Victor B. graduated from the high school, was for two years a student in the University of West Virginia, and is, in 1922, attending the West Virginia Wesleyan College at Buckhannon; Maysel is attending the Clay High School; and the three younger members of the attractive home circle are Friend Paul, Benjamin C. and Mildred.