My Genealogy Hound

Clayton T. Murphy, postmaster at New Haven, to which office he was appointed November, 1885, and which position he has since filled to the satisfaction of all, was born in Culpeper County, Va., in 1855, and is the younger of two sons born to Thompson and Sarah A. C. (Norris) Murphy, also natives of Culpeper County, Va., where they were reared, married and passed their entire lives. The mother died when our subject was an infant, and the father followed her to the grave about three years later. The father was of Scotch-Irish descent, and the son of Peter Murphy. Clayton was reared principally by an aunt, and received a good common-school education, but later attended school at Lexington before he left his native State. In 1868 he came to Missouri, and after about two years at school in Boonville, Mo., returned to Virginia and entered Bethel Military Academy. Here he was soon taken sick and was obliged to abandon further study. In 1872 he returned to Missouri and spent about three years in St. Francois County, after which he moved to Franklin County, and was here married January 10, 1877, to Miss Sarah A., daughter of James T., Sr., and Helen Murphy, and also a native of Culpeper County, Va. Three children were born to this union: Leland H., William I. and Olive B. Mr. Murphy farmed until 1880, when he moved to New Haven and clerked in a mercantile house for two years. He then removed to Holt County, but only remained there one year until he returned to New Haven, and has since made that city his home, a portion of the time teaching school until he received his present position. In politics he has been a life-long Democrat, casting his first presidential vote for S. J. Tilden, in 1876. He is a Mason, and he and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.