Sarah (Barton) Murphy (1748 - 1817)

Born 8 May 1748 in Frederick, Maryland

Ancestors

Wife of William Murphy — married 21 Jul 1766 in Virginia

Descendants

Died Mar 1817 at age 68 in Farmington, St. Francois, Missouri, United States

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Biography

Sarah Barton Murphy was the daughter of Joshua Barton and Jane DuBart. She was the third wife of Rev. William Murphy. Their children were:

Tabitha Murphy Gentry 1767 - bef. 1822

Sarah Murphy Evans 1768 - 1794

David Murphy 1770 - 1845

Dubart Murphy 1773 - 1836

Isaac Murphy 1779 -

Richard Murphy 1784 -

After her husband William's death in 1799, Sarah and her stepsons, David, William and Joseph, purchased a flat boat and loaded it with all her possessions and the remainder of the family accompanied by William Evans, a nine-year-old grandson a hired lad about eighteen years old, a negro woman and boy, cast their fortune on the Holston River. Floating down the Ohio River to its mouth, thence up the Mississippi, after a journey full of hardships and peril, many places along the' route being infested with hostile Indians, which places she managed to pass in the night and staying at the bank in some place of concealment during the day, she finally reached Ste. Genevieve, a distance of a thousand miles or more. When she arrived at Ste. Genevieve, the inhabitants gave her quite an ovation and brought, her and her effects to her place of destination. She arrived on the 12th day of June 1802.

Mrs. Sarah Murphy seeing the boys passing the Sundays in fishing and other Sabbath-breaking amusements, determined to counteract that growing evil. In about 1805 she organized and taught the first Sunday School west of the Mississippi River. She also offered the first public prayer «Ian this community. ^[1]

She gathered the boys around her each Sunday as long as she lived. When I first came to Farmington, that old cabin. was still standing with the roof rotted off and some of the logs tumbling down, and fifty years back there remained evidence of its location, but there is no trace left on the spot now, of its ever having existed.

Mrs. Murphy donated one acre of ground for church purposes, which is now a part of the Masonic Cemetery, and built on it, a log house of worship, the house, 22x30 feet, in which all the preaching was done.

"In 1817 the settlement met with its greatest bereavement. Mrs. Sarah Barton Murphy, whose superior intellect and goodness had by common consent dominated this community in everything that is peaceful and ennobling, died. She was taken sick, and her friends considered it only a slight indisposition, but she told them from the first that it was her last sickness and her work on earth was finished. As calmly as she performed the little duties of her little Sunday School, she set about the disposition of her worldly affairs, giving such advice to her dear ones as she deemed best for them. In two or three days she passed up to put on the crown, which is bestowed on the righteous, as a reward for their faith. She was buried on the lot which she had donated to the Methodist Church. A marble shaft stands at her head giving her age as near as could be ascertained, and the date of her death and the inscription: ' She organized and taught the first Sunday School west of the Mississippi River." ^[2]

Sarah died in 1817 and is buried in Masonic Cemetery of Farmington (South), Farmington, St. Francois County, Missouri, USA ^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ Inscribed on a memorial monument in St Francois, photographed on FindaGrave memorial #42624707
2. ↑ Sturgess, Alice Murphy.History of Rev. William Murphy and his descendants, 1798-1918. Nixon-Jones Printing Co., St. Louis, MO, 1918, P. 22.
3. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #42624707, citing ; Maintained by Marc G. (contributor 47134658).

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Sheri Sturm for starting this profile.