Description

Nathan Oakes Murphy (b. 1849 – d. 1908) was born October 14, 1849 in Lincoln County, Maine to Benjamin F. Murphy and Lucy (Oakes) Murphy. In 1856 the family moved to Wisconsin and from 1866 to 1869, Murphy taught school, practiced some law and worked on various mining ventures. Murphy later moved to California and then to Prescott, Arizona where he was a land agent for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1887. His brother, Frank Morrell Murphy, owned the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railroad.

Murphy engaged in real estate, mining and politics. He has the distinction of being the only Governor of the Arizona Territory appointed on two non-consecutive occasions, serving from 1892-1893 and from 1898-1902. His administration made some of the greatest accomplishments for the territory, and would eventually help its statehood bid. It included the development of the Arizona Rangers, which brought law and order to the territory, and the opening of a Normal School in Flagstaff, establishing the last of Arizona's college triumvirate. He also was elected to the Fifty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1895 – March 3, 1897).

On August 6, 1884, he married Sarah E. Banghart whose father was a pioneer of Chino Valley, Arizona. They had one son, Paul Tritle Murphy, and divorced in Phoenix in September 1903. Murphy then married Emma D. Sells of Washington D.C. in April 1904.

While Governor he was admitted to practice law in the Territory in February 1901. After resigning from the governorship in 1902, he traveled through Europe and the United States. He died suddenly at the Hotel del Coronado, in San Diego, California on August 22, 1908. He was buried in San Diego’s Woodlawn Cemetery. He was re-interred in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington D.C. in December of 1909.

Sources: Arizona Archives Online, Find A Grave, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, www.ourcampaigns.com.