USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > The civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the county of Kings and the city of Brooklyn, N. Y., from 1683 to 1884 Volume I > Part 83
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143 | Part 144 | Part 145 | Part 146 | Part 147 | Part 148 | Part 149 | Part 150 | Part 151 | Part 152 | Part 153 | Part 154 | Part 155 | Part 156 | Part 157 | Part 158 | Part 159 | Part 160 | Part 161 | Part 162 | Part 163 | Part 164 | Part 165 | Part 166 | Part 167 | Part 168 | Part 169 | Part 170 | Part 171 | Part 172 | Part 173 | Part 174 | Part 175 | Part 176 | Part 177 | Part 178 | Part 179 | Part 180 | Part 181 | Part 182
He was a tall, fine-looking man; his character was marked by prudence, industry, reticence, and self-reliance. He died in 1853, in the 70th year of his age, leaving four daughters and two sons. To the life and career of the eldest of these sons the following pages are devoted.
HENRY C. MURPHY was born in the village of Brooklyn, July 5, 1810-two years after the removal of his parents to that place.
To use the language of Dr. Henry R. Stiles, the accom- plished historian of Brooklyn, in his memoir of Mr. Murphy: "While he was growing up amid all the advantages of a moral life and surroundings, he was, by virtue of his parents' watchful care and social standing, brought in contact with all that was best in the society of the village, as well as with that higher strata of culture and intellect to be found in the limited circle of New York people who, summer after sum- mer, sought in the charms of Brooklyn residence a delightful retreat from the cares and the heat of the city. His growing years gave early indications of abilities which his subsequent life so fully developed."
After closing his preparatory course at the High School of the City of New York, he entered Columbia College. While there he was distinguished for close and thorough application to his studies, with something of thoughtful reserve in his manner, which he at times exhibited in after life. He was popular with the faculty and with the students, revealing in the occasional altercations and disputes, incident to college life, a generous intrepidity and those flexible muscular powers which always render a student popular in college. But his chief delight was in the privacy of his room, where his books were his favorite companions. To him they were never failing well-springs of intellectual delight.
He was a frequent contributor to The Balance, a college journal conducted with marked ability. This laid the founda- tion for his future eminence as a writer. His contributions to The Balance had so little of the sophomoric style, were marked by such breadth of thought and literary finish, that their paternity was assigned by some to a distinguished clergyman, one of the alumni of the college. But the pro- fessors knew them to be the offspring of young Murphy's intellectual labor. With such devotion to his studies, such ` natural and acquired endowments, he closed his collegiate life in a brilliant graduation.
While in college, young Murphy's favorite place of resort was the City Hall, where the courts held their sittings. Here he listened to the thrilling eloquence of Ogden Hoff- man, the powerful legal rhetoric of Graham, the calm, ornate and pleasing arguments of Daniel Lord, and to the first bril- liant efforts of James T. Brady. As might have been ex- pected, these made a strong impression upon the young student's mind, and from that day till the close of his life, he never ceased to admire the eloquence of the bar. Fortu- nately for him, he fully appreciated the nature of that eloquence.
He felt that there is no scene of public speaking where real eloquence is more necessary, and he understood that the subtlety and dryness of the subjects generally agitated at the bar, require more than any other a certain kind of eloquence in order to command attention ; in order to give proper weight to the arguments employed, and to prevent anything which the pleader advances to pass unregarded ; that there is as much difference in the impressions made upon judges and jurors, by a cold, dry and confused speaker and that made by
one who pleads the same cause with elegance, order and strength, as there is between our conceptions of an object when it is presented to us in a dim light, and when we be- hold it in a full and clear light.
As might have been expected, young Murphy determined to enter the legal profession ; accordingly, soon after leaving college, he entered the law office of Hon. Peter W. Radcliffe, then one of the most eminent lawyers practicing at the New York city bar. The student and the practitioner in pursuing his legal researches is surprised to find in the early report of our courts, State and Federal, such various memoranda of the professional labors and learning of Mr. Radcliffe. Mr. Radcliffe, although practicing at the New York city bar, was a resident of Brooklyn. He was in every sense peculiarly fitted to become the legal preceptor of a man like Mr. Murphy.
In seeing how causes were tried and argued by this gifted and skillful lawyer, the young man learned how to conduct with success the contests of the bar.
While a law student, politics-the natural sphere of lawyers -began to have strong attractions for young Murphy. At that early age he favored the Democratic party, which found in him, young as he was, a decided and influential partisan. His pen was an habitual dispenser of eloquence and reason exerted in its behalf.
To the columns of The Brooklyn Advocate and Nassau Gazette, a strong and influential Democratic paper, Mr. Murphy was a valued contributor ; many of its most pungent and forcible leaders, written with intuitive grace, and which attracted general attention, were the productions of his pen ; written, not for emolument, but out of a sense of duty to his party, and for the exercise it gave his intellectual powers. It is impossible to read them, as they now appear in the files of that journal, without being struck with the view they ex- hibit of the writer's mental richness and activity. "Even before entering upon his legal studies," says Dr. Stiles, "he had been conspicuous in the preparation of the constitution and organization of a literary and debating society, known at first as The Young Men's Literary Association of Brook- lyn, a name which a year later was changed to The Hamil- ton Literary Association of Brooklyn, of which he was chosen the first President. Edgar J. Bartow, G. W. Horace, W. and J. C. Dow, J. Tasker Howard, Joshua M. Van Cott, Alden M. Spooner, J. H. Raymond and Francis P. Sanford, and others,-all men of mark - some of whom have passed over to the majority-while others still remain.
The Hamilton Literary Association was, for over a quarter of a century, one of the vital forces of Brooklyn life and in- terest. It organized a system of volunteer lectures, which became the commencement of the lecture system of the citics of the Union. From it also sprang the Brooklyn Lyceum, since the Brooklyn Institute.
In May, 1833, Murphy was called to the bar, and entered upon his practice in Brooklyn. The next year he was mar- ried to Miss Amelia, the daughter of Richard Greenwood, Esq. He came to the bar with rare faculties, ready for its contests, its vicissitudes, defeats and success. His qualities as a lawyer and advocate, as his practice developed them, were penetrating judgment, quick perception, and even control of his temper, intuitively seizing upon the strong points of a case, and presenting them to the court and jury, with remarkable earnestness and effect. The facility with which he acquired the forms of business were very early exhibited. Business flowed in upon him, until he found himself in the midst of an extensive and lucrative practice.
In 1834, when he had been at the bar but one year, he was appointed Assistant Corporation Counsel, which was the first office he ever held. In the Autumn of that year, he was
362
HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.
chosen a delegate to the Democratic State Convention, held at Herkimer. Immediately upon its organization, he was made, young as he was, chairman of the Committee on Res- olutions. This was a splendid compliment to the standing and abilities of the young lawyer ; but he was not merely a nominal chairman of that committee, he was its intellect, its brains.
Those were the days of President Jackson's war on the United States Bank ; days when timid, temporizing men stood aghast, when bold and far-seeing ones only acted. Among these was Murphy, who reported to the convention a resolution denouncing the bank, and favoring the policy of Jackson. The peculiar language of this resolution brought on a long and exciting debate, in which Mr. Murphy partici- pated, displaying abilities as a political debater that gave him a State reputation as a politician.
That illustrious statesman, Wm. L. Marcy, was then Gov- ernor of the State, which was Democratic by a very large majority, and it was therefore natural that the policy of Gen. Jackson should be endorsed by the Herkimer Conven- tion, in the passage of Mr. Murphy's resolution. But, as we have said, exceptions were taken to some of its verbiage, which aroused the debate. After its passage, "it was eventually smothered in the report of the convention's pro- ceedings."
It was not long after this before Mr. Murphy was appointed counsel for the city of Brooklyn, which had then just been incorporated.
As Mr. Murphy's father had been instrumental in incor- porating Brooklyn as a village, so the son contributed of his best efforts to secure for his birth-place higher civic dignity.
In 1835 Mr. Murphy formed a partnership with John A. Lott, then the leading lawyer in Brooklyn, and subsequently distinguished in the judicial and political history of the State of New York. After some time had elapsed, Judge Vander- bilt came into the firm, and, to use the language of another, : " the celebrated firm of Lott, Murphy & Vanderbilt com- menced a career of honor and prosperity, which continued for over twenty years, enjoying the best practice of Long Island." The firm became wealthy, and soon became the controlling influence of the Democratic party on the Brooklyn side of the East River.
To attempt to note the political career of this firm, would be to write a political history of Brooklyn. Of this political management, Murphy was the master spirit, Lott the legal mind, and Vanderbilt-handsome in person and winning in address-figured as the favorite son of Kings County, and the firm's candidate for Governor for many years. Enough has been said to show that, in that little Front Street office, for a period of over twenty years, many a man's political fortune was made or marred.
Mr. Murphy was active in the formation of the Brooklyn Library. In October, 1841, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat was started by several prominent Democratic politicians, as a campaign organ. As it proved an unexpected success, its proprietors continued it as a daily paper. In April of the following year, it passed into the hands of Mr. Isaac Van Arden, and it has become, under the name of the Brooklyn Eagle, one of the most able and influ- ential papers of the times. Mr. Murphy never lost his inter- est in this journal, and the contributions of his pen, to it, were frequent, interesting and able.
In 1842 he was chosen Mayor of Brooklyn ; he was then 32 years of age. His career as chief magistrate of this city has passed into history. His administration was economical and profitable. As an example of economy, he reduced his own salary as mayor, inaugurating a system of retrenchments
which confined the expenditures of the city within the limits of its income. Under his administration, also, Myrtle avenue, now an old and popular thoroughfare, was opened and paved ; and by his hand the acts which may be said to have secured the colossal ware-house system on Brooklyn's water-front, were prepared. In 1844 he was one of the or- ganizers and officers of the Brooklyn Association for Improv- ing the Condition of the Poor.
His administration as Mayor was so popular that he was brought forward as a candidate for Congress, and elected a member from the Second Congressional District. He entered upon his Congressional duties Dec. 4, 1843, closing them March 3, 1845. He was one of the youngest, yet one of the most distinguished of the representatives in that body from New York. Two of his colleagues, Hamilton Fish and Washington Hunt, were afterwards elected Governors of the State.
He at once ardently entered into the duties of his office. On the question of free trade, that of the annexation of Texas, and other great questions that occupied the attention of Congress that year, Mr. Murphy took a distinguished part. He was a free trade advocate, and favored the annexation of Texas, provided Mexico might be afforded an opportunity to give her assent. Through his influence an appropriation for the building of the Naval Dry Dock at Wallabout Bay was secured.
He was a candidate for re-election for the next term, but notwithstanding his singular success on the floor of Congress, he was defeated by Henry L. Seaman. But Mr. Murphy's Congressional career is one of the features of history.
In the year 1844, one of the great measures before the people of the State of New York was a proposed convention for the amendment of the Constitution. There were many things to be said for and against this proposed measure. At this time the Democratic party was approaching the period of its great schism, a division into the Hunker and Barnburner factions. It was then largely dominant in the State, but these factions in the Autumn of 1846 led to its defeat.
A bill for the proposed convention passed the Legislature in 1845, after an exciting and singularly interesting debate.
The convention assembled at the Capitol in the City of Albany, on the 1st day of June, 1846. The delegate's from Kings County were Henry C. Murphy, Tunis G. Bergen and Conrad Schwackhammer. This body is remembered in his- tory as enrolling among its members some of the most dis- tinguished jurists in the State.
The career of Mr. Murphy in this convention was a matter of pride to his constituency. He entered the convention with a legislative experience and ability which was at once recognized. On the 30th of June, in committee of the whole, having in consideration the powers and duties of the execu- tive, one of the most important debates of the session took place. The question involved the limitation of the powers of the Governor, the qualifications which rendered a person eligible for that office, and the term for which he should be elected. The ablest members of the convention participated in it, among whom were Charles O'Conor, Ira Harris, Henry C. Murphy, John K. Porter and Alva Worden.
Such was the interest the debate created that the galleries, lobby, and every accessible place in the Assembly chamber were occupied by attentive and interested listeners. It raised those who participated in it above the limits of local reputa- tion to the rank of statesmen. Mr. Murphy's speech was one of the marked features of the debate. Though slightly and imperfectly reported, it attracted general commendation. The State, its institutions, policy, interest and destiny, as connected with its executive, were the topics to which he
363
LEGAL BIOGRAPHIES.
gave his attention, and he confined himself to them with an intensity of thought, earnestness of purpose, and cogency of reasoning, that exhibited the statesman, patriot and orator.
In the debate on the questions of the re-organization of the Judiciary, the re-construction of the courts, the abolish- ment of the Court of Errors, and the abolishment of the Court of Chancery, giving equity powers to the Supreme Court, the election of judges by the people, Mr. Murphy took an important and responsible part ; and he will ever be re- garded as an able and efficient artisan in the construction of the important measures that subsequently became funda- mental laws of the State. His labors in the convention found such ready and hearty recognition, that in the Autumn of 1846 he was elected to Congress by an astonishingly large majority.
It would be the work of supererogation to follow Mr. Murphy's course in his second Congressional term. Suffice it to say he was one of the most conspicuous, laborious and efficient workers of the thirtieth Congress. At the close of his term he was tendered a re-nomination, but his large and rapidly increasing legal business compelled him to decline it. He had little to do with politics until the presidential cam- paign of 1852 opened. In the Democratic convention held at Baltimore that year he was a prominent candidate for the presidency. Franklin Pierce was his opponent. On the forty-seventh ballot the latter was nominated. Mr. Murphy entered ardently into the canvass in favor of Mr. Pierce, one of its most effective leaders, as he was afterwards in the can- vass which resulted in Buchanan's election.
One of the first acts of President Buchanan was the ap- pointment of Mr. Murphy as minister to the Hague. As he had long been identified in the work of rescuing from oblivion the early history of our State, particularly that part which relates to our first colonization by Holland, there was some- thing in the opportunity which this appointment offered eminently congenial to his historic and literary taste, and this was the paramount reason for his accepting the position. Before leaving for this new sphere of action, a farewell ban- quet was given him at the Mansion House, Brooklyn. It took place August 5, 1857. A large number of his fellow citizens of all parties were present to testify to their high respect for him. The occasion will long be remembered as one of the happiest social events that ever took place in Brooklyn. In response to a sentiment he made a brief, touching, farewell address, in the course of which he used the following pro- phetic language, which recent events have proved singularly true: "It requires," he said, " no spirit of prophecy to fore- tell the union of the two cities, of New York and Brooklyn, at no distant day ; the river which divides them will soon cease to be a line of separation, and, bestrode by the Colossus of Commerce, will form a link which will bind them to- gether."
During his absence of three years at the Hague, he found time to communicate a series of thirty-five most interesting letters upon Holland and other parts of Europe, for the Brooklyn Eagle, many of which were extensively copied in other papers. While in Holland, all hopes of compromising the pending difficulty between the North and the South ended; and, in "accordance with instructions from our Gov- ernment, in an address to the government of the Hague, he presented an elaborate exposition of the relationship of the States to each other, and to the General Government, clearly pointing out the supremacy of the latter in all matters com- mitted to it by the Constitution, and the equally absolute rights of the States over all matters not delegated to the United States by that instrument : and he also showed that the Rebellion owed its origin chiefly to sectional hate, and the
ambition of its leaders." This paper was published in the Diplomatic Correspondence of 1861-2, and was generally con- sidered as the clearest and most statesman-like of any of the statements at that time, made by our representatives abroad.
At the beginning of President Lincoln's administration, he was recalled. Born in a locality which had been hallowed by scenes and associations of the Revolution, almost on those historic fields where Washington, with his feeble arny, con- tended against the steady valor of the British soldiers ; not far from the Wallabout, the scene of indescribable suffering and agonizing deatlıs of thousands of American patriots; liv- ing where grand memories thronged about him, his soul was embued with a lofty love for the Union, and vivid venera- tion for the great men, the strong men, and the suffering men who won victories which led to the creation of that Union. It is not strange that he returned to his native coun- try, determined to sustain it with every effort, and at all sacrifices.
He was immediately elected to the State Senate, as a Union man, representing his district in that body for ten successive years, and in that body was one of the strongest supporters of the Federal government during the war. Not by words only, but by deeds, did he sustain the Union cause. He en- couraged enlistments, paid private bounties to soldiers enter- ing the service, and, through his exertions mainly, the 3d Senatorial Regiment and the 159th New York State Vol- unteers were put in the field in fighting order. As happens in most cases of eminent jurists and statesmen, occupying places of commanding influence, Mr. Murphy became a sub- ject of invidious comment, by which dull or prejudiced men seek to disparage those gifts, and that influence, which is be- yond their own reach ; and there were those who sought to injure Mr. Murphy, in attaching blame to certain acts of his while at the Hague, and even launching the arrows of de- traction at him while at home.
But these were of short life, and his fair fame emerged from them, and he continued to exercise great influence, much of which was exerted in behalf of his native city ; in- deed, in no place were improvements deemed to be more nec- essary than in this city. As has been said, " the war had turned the direction of men's thoughts another way." But upon its close, plans for its improvement began to be sug- gested, for it was the worst paved, worst lighted, and worst sewercd city in the country. To prepare, urge forward and bring these plans to a successful conclusion, the laws neces- sary for that purpose were entrusted to Senator Murphy. For the space of twelve years' service in the Senate, most of these great measures intimately connected with the advance- ment of Brooklyn and the County of Kings, were projected by him. It is impossible to turn in any direction, in the city of Brooklyn, without coming in contact with the impress of his hand ; his influence is felt on every page of its charter, and it is not too much to say, that Henry C. Murphy's best monument is the city of Brooklyn and what she contains.
" Inscribe my name on the splendid edifices that adorn Athens, which I have aided in erecting," said a great Athen- ian statesman, " and I will see that the city be relieved from every expense of their erection." "It needs no name of thine inscribed upon them to perpetuate thy name or memory, for both will live immortal and eternal, when the Acropolis and the Parthenon shall have crumbled into ruins," was the re- ply. So we may say that the name of Henry C. Murphy will live fresh in history, when the splendid adornments of Brooklyn-largely the creation of his intellect and genius -have passed away before " time's effacing finger."
His conspicuous political career in 1866 and again in 1868 brought his name forward as a prominent candidate for Gov-
364
HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.
ernor, but Tweed and his myrmidons defeated his nomina- tion. In 1875, on the expiration of Mr. Fenton's term in the United States Senate, Mr. Murphy's nomination to that place was strongly urged by his friends. Francis Kernan, sus- tained by the overwhelming influence of Horatio Seymour, was his opponent. For a long time the contest was doubtful, but at last Mr. Kernan was elected. With that struggle, Mr. Murphy's political career mainly ended.
Mr. Murphy represented Kings County in the Constitu- tional Convention of 1867, as one of the delegates at large. Illness prevented his attending the Convention except a lim- ited time, but in that time, brief as it was, he was one of the most active, eloquent and respected members. This was Murphy's last public official service. It has been said, per- haps with much truth, " that his political career actually culminated with his retirement from the Ministry to the Hague, that the party of his adhesion passed out of power in 1861, and that for Henry C. Murphy there was not, for years, a field for national action.
Entering the State Senate was, after all, entering a nar- rower field than that in which he had previously won re- nown. It is true he served his fellow citizens with power and effect, yet for all that, there was a check in his upward career. It must be concluded that for a man having within him the great possibilities he had, his after career was a dis- appointment. He sought the Governorship ; none denied him the abilities to fill the position with honor to himself, and benefit of the people whose choice he apparently was, but the mysterious influences of manipulating politicians, now better understood by the people, tliwarted their ambi- tion. With his disappointment in the contest for Senator of the United States, he withdrew from the participation in the politics of the party in which forty years of his life had passed. He escaped the ranks of the highest distinction by the merest chances, and though his life was full of honor and of great deeds, he doubtless felt himself a disappointed man. His temperament may have been an element in this result, for he was neither warm enough nor sympathetic enough to attach to him that devoted following, historical in Henry Clay and Horatio Seymour, and yet both of these men failed in their aspiration for the Presidential chair, as have other great men of the Nation. Mr. Murphy only failed as a politician ; in all else his life was a grand success.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.