Early life

John Murphy was born in 1786 in Robeson County, North Carolina. He attended South Carolina College, now the University of South Carolina, where he was a member of the Clariosophic Society.^[1] Among his classmates at South Carolina College were John Gayle and James Dellet. Gayle also became Governor of Alabama while Dellet became a U.S. Congressman from Alabama.^[2] Murphy graduated in 1808.

Career

He became a clerk at the South Carolina Senate. He was a trustee for the University of South Carolina from 1808 to 1818.^[3]

In 1818, he moved to Alabama and was elected to the Alabama House in 1820 and the Alabama Senate in 1822. He was elected Governor of Alabama in 1824, and in 1827 he was elected for a second term. He represented Alabama in the United States House of Representatives from 1833 to 1835.

Personal life

Under the date of April 2, 1834, John Quincy Adams records in his diary that Congressman James Blair "shot himself last evening at his lodgings ... after reading part of an affectionate letter from his wife, to Governor Murphy, of Alabama, who was alone in the chamber with him, and a fellow-lodger at the same house." Diary (New York: Longmans, Green, 1929) p. 434.

Death

He died in 1841 in Clarke County, Alabama.^{[citation needed]} Murphy was buried in Gosport.^[4]