Barbara (Miller) Morphy (1775 - 1863)

Born 1775 in Tipperary Ireland

Wife of Edmond Murphy — married about 1804 (to about 1841) in Ireland

Descendants

Died 1863 at about age 88 in Blanshard Township, St Mary's, Perth County, Ontario

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Biography

(a reprint from a story in the St. Mary's Standard newspaper (published 1855-1872 in County Perth, Township Blanshard, Ontario)

At the residence of her son-in-law, William Sparrow Esq. of Blanshard on Tuesday then14th inst. Barbara Miller relict of the late Edmond Murphey in the 88th year of her age. The deceased lady was grandmother of Mr. John and Mr Edmond Murphey of St Mary's, Ontario. She was born in 1775 in the County of Tipperary, Ireland, a descendant of the Palatines who settled in that country about the time of the Reformation; with her family she had experienced much of the horrors of the bloody rebellion of 1798 and on several occasions she had to flee for life or hide from the murderous pike-men as best she could. In 1819 with her husband Edmond and family she came to Canada and after a short residence in Prescott moved into the township of Lanark in Beckwith County, while yet the country was a wilderness. They chose for their new home in the forest the land about a handsome Falls on the Mississippi River and which for many years after bore the name of Morphy's Falls. On the spot is now the flourishing village of Carleton Place. Here for they were the only white residents in the vicinity and many of the then leading men of the province made the hospitable house their stopping place of their way from the St. Lawrence to the Upper Ottawa. In those early days one can easily fancy the difficulties that beset the immigrant when the nearest grist mill was 34 miles distant through the bush. But the deceased dearly loved to see the wilderness give way to the bush men of civilization and before she left the banks of the Mississippi she had long enjoyed the comforts of a home surrounded by every desirable luxury in the midst of a thriving population. She came to reside in Blanshard in 1848 having been a widow for seven years. She leaves 150 descendants now living in Canada; via 3 children, 58 grandchildren, having lost 13 children, 14 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren in all 189. She was ever a sincere Protestant and the same may be said of her numerous descendants not one of whom has been known to have married either wife or husband of any other faith. Her Bible was her constant companion and she scarcely allowed a day to pass without consulting its sacred pages and she fell asleep at last without a struggle full in faith of a crucified Redeemer and in the sure and certain hope of a blissful immortality. (Copied by Charles James Smith, great-grandson of Barbara (Miller) Murphy, died 1874.

She arrived in Canada in 1819 with 6 sons and 2 daughters; she had a total of 16 children and at the time of her death only 3 were living.

Sources

l (Reprint of a story in the St Mary's Standard newspaper-published 1855-1872 in County Perth, Township Blanshard, Ontario) *** NOTE...this article was re-typed exactly as reprinted by Charles James Smith...note the 3 different spellings of Murphey..then Morphey Falls...then Murphy. This makes me question correct spelling at birth of Edmond and at death of Barbara, his wife? Assume the family changed its spelling during their lifetimes or it wouldn't have appeared this way..?

• • • NOTE—This entire reprinted story was given to me by a descendant of Charles

James Smith. ....who married Sarah Conley in Ontario and together had a very large family. (Please see Charles’ profile= Smith-100,877; then see his son Forrest’s profile, Smith-99453). Forrest died at 36 in Saskatchewan, leaving his wife Bessie (Fergusson-165 ) to rear his 5 children. His eldest child, Aileen Smith (Smith-99454) told me personally she had a “complicated” relationship with the Charles Smith family. After Forrest died in 1912, Aileen spent a few years with her mother, Bessie, but from about age 8 or 9? lived permanently with her Smith grandparents, Charles and Sarah in Ontario which allowed her to have relationships with all the Smith daughters (Aileen’s aunts). Most of the information for Forrest’s family’s profiles came from Aileen’s records and communication she and I had in the 1980’s. Additional information came from Aileen’s brother Conley + half-brother Jack—after their deaths, all of it entered in these Wikitree profiles. (Entered by ME Fletcher...April 24, 2016; March 12, 2019; )

• Smith Family records

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