(Editors note: Source material for this story was taken from several sources, including the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Wikipedia, Find-A-Grave and the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission.)
The monument that covers the grave of Issac Murphy in the Huntsville Cemetery in Madison County is one of just 2068 marking the final resting place of those interred in that stone garden but, ironically, Murphy was a man who stood alone against the entire Arkansas Secessionist Convention held in 1861.
Born October 16, 1799 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a wealthy paper manufacturer and his wife, Murphy was educated locally and at Washington College (now Washington & Jefferson College) in Washington, Pennsylvania.
He was admitted to the bar in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on April 29, 1825. In 1830, Murphy moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he taught school.
There he met and wed Angelina Lockhart on July 31, 1830. Her father so opposed the marriage when he learned that Murphy favored the abolition of slavery, that he disinherited Angelina.In 1834, the Murphy's, with their newborn daughter, moved west to Fayetteville in the Arkansas Territory.
In Fayetteville, Murphy established himself as a school teacher, surveyor, and lawyer. The territory was admitted as a state in 1836 and Murphy was elected as the first county treasurer of Washington County that same year, and serving for two years.
He was appointed as a master in chancery in 1841. From 1837 to 1838, Murphy ran the original government land lines for Franklin County and on November 30, 1844, the noted Indian Missionary Cephas Washburn, along with Murphy and other leaders, secured a charter for a college known as the Far West Seminary.
Murphy taught both whites and Indians at the seminary, intended for young men. Murphy taught here until the building was destroyed by fire on February 17, 1845, putting him in debt, as he had invested in the school.
In 1846 Murphy was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives for Washington County, and re-elected in 1848. With assignment to the Banking Committee, he attempted to introduce reforms but was stymied by the powerful political cabal known as "The Family".
Murphy ran into financial difficulties about 1849 and left for California to seek wealth in the California Gold Rush. Among the many who did not succeed, he returned to Arkansas in 1854 with nothing to show for his efforts.
Upon his return he moved to Huntsville. His daughter Mrs. Mary Lowe Pierson of Washington County had been hired to teach at a new female seminary in Huntsville, the Pleasant View Female Seminary.
Murphy and two more daughters were hired to assist in its operations.
In 1856, Murphy was elected to the State Senate representing Madison and Benton counties, to succeed the late senator John Berry. Murphy's eldest daughter Malilla married James R. Berry, one of the senator's sons.
Northwest Arkansas was a Unionist stronghold in the years before the Civil War./ Isaac Murphy was elected in 1861 to the Secession Convention from Madison County on the Unionist platform, receiving eighty-five percent of the vote, and he stunned his constituency by eventually becoming the lone delegate to vote “no” on Arkansas’s secession from the Union.
Upon returning to Huntsville, he was greeted well by the locals. However, this attitude changed as the war progressed and, particularly, as the war came closer to home. Although a majority of the people in and around Huntsville had been Unionists, sides were now changing.
Following the Battle of Pea Ridge, Murphy’s life was threatened, and he, along with Dr. James M. Johnson and Frank Johnson, were forced to flee to Pea Ridge , where Murphy took a civilian position on General Samuel Curtis’s staff. Although Murphy had made arrangements to have his family moved to Missouri, the plans did not materialize, and his daughters, Louisa and Laura, remained behind in Huntsville, where they faced constant harassment.
By the fall of 1862, Murphy’s daughters were most eager to visit him and made the trip to Pea Ridge. As preparations were being made for the Battle of Prairie Grove, they had to be sent back to Huntsville weeks later, a journey they began on November 16, 1862. For protection, Colonel Alfred W. Bishop furnished an escort of twenty-five soldiers to accompany them.
When they were within about two miles of Huntsville, the escort decided to send the Murphy daughters into Huntsville alone. While resting, the escort was surprised by a local guerrilla band, and a skirmish ensued. Of the twenty-five soldiers sent as escort, only seven returned to Pea Ridge alive.
Following the Battle of Prairie Grove, General Francis Herron was ordered to take his 5,000 troops northeast to the Mississippi River to join General Ulysses S. Grant on his push toward Vicksburg, Mississippi. This trek took Herron and his troops through Madison County via Huntsville.
Upon arrival, it was reported that the Murphy daughters were still being harassed by the locals to the point of having their personal belongings taken from them. Within days, several citizens were arrested and held for reasons not entirely clear.
In the early morning hours of January 10, 1863, nine men were taken out for execution by members of Company G of the Eighth Missouri Cavalry, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Elias Briggs Baldwin. Those executed included Chesley H. Boatright, a blacksmith, former county treasurer, deacon of the Huntsville Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and prominent Mason; William Martin Berry, a prominent member of Odeon Masonic Lodge and son-in-law of Isaac Murphy; Hugh Samuel Berry, son of the aforementioned William M. Berry and captain in the Confederate army, home on leave; John William Moody, nephew-in-law to Chesley H. Boatright and a deputy U.S. marshal and farmer; Confederate army captain Askin Hughes; John Hughes; Watson P. Stevens, a cousin of the Berrys; Robert Coleman Young, a Baptist minister; and Bill Parks. One of the nine, Parks, survived and left for Mississippi after he had recuperated.
Word of the massacre spread quickly among the Union troops, and within weeks Lt. Col. Baldwin was arrested and charged with “violation of the 6th Article of War for the murder of prisoners of war.”
He was transported to Springfield, Missouri, where he was to be held pending a trial before a military commission. Many of the requested witnesses were either too ill to attend or on active duty and did not attend the trial. Due to the lack of witnesses, charges against Baldwin were dropped, and he was discharged.
The execution had a profound effect on the area and contributed to the closing of two colleges in Huntsville. Isaac Murphy was the head of the Masonic-sponsored college, and his daughters and wife ran the female seminary. As both were sponsored by the Masonic fraternity, and as several prominent Masons were executed, the lodge closed the school.
The Masons no doubt felt that Murphy and Dr. James Johnson (also a prominent Mason) had a hand in the arrest of those executed. No connection between those executed and the ambush of the Union military escort was ever established.
Ironically, a number of those eight men who died in what has been dubbed the "Huntsville Massacre" are, like Murphy, are buried in the Huntsville Cemetery. Also, a memorial to those murdered in Huntsville was erected, dedicated on September 30, 2006
As war broke out, Murphy fled his home in Huntsville; he spent much of the war traveling with the Union army in northwestern Arkansas. Following the fall of the capital city of Little Rock to the Union in 1863, Arkansas' Confederate government, led by Governor Harris Flanagin, went into exile.
In a special election, held with the approval of President Lincoln, Isaac Murphy was elected as governor of Arkansas in 1864. He was elected governor in the special election held that was he;ld after Union troops captured Little Rock in 1863, forcing the state's Confederate government, led by Governor Harris Flanagin, into exile.
After the war, Murphy worked to try to heal the war wounds in Arkansas, even as the war continued in the southern parts of the state. He worked for balance and said publicly that "We have all done wrong."
After Lincoln's assassination and the actions of numerous state legislatures to control freedmen and limit their rights, Republicans in Congress began advocating stricter Reconstruction for the former Confederate states. In 1866, pro-Confederate legislators won majorities in several southern states.
That same year, white violence against former slaves broke out in several states. In response, Republicans in Congress pushed through the 14th Amendment, granting full citizenship, rights and due process to freedmen, and the Reconstruction Acts of 1867.
The rebel states were divided into military districts, to be controlled by US Army forces until the states passed new state constitutions protecting the civil rights of former slaves and accepting the 14th Amendment.
Murphy was allowed to stay in office, but he was criticized by both sides. When Murphy left office, his administration had a budget surplus. It had started with no funds. With no initiatives passed by the Reconstruction legislature to provide for public welfare and education, as well as investment in infrastructure, this surplus was diverted to public projects.
Murphy returned to Huntsville and took up farming and practicing law. He lived a quiet life with his family. On September 8, 1882, Murphy died unexpectedly at his home.
He is buried in Huntsville Cemetery in Huntsville...one of 2068.
