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James Murray
THE career of James
Murray is well told in the Letters of James Murray, Loyalist. He was
connected with the Murrays of Philiphaugh, one of whom, his cousin
David, the second living son of John Murray of Philiphaugh, died in
Savannah, April 29, 1771. He had a brother John, who became a doctor and
afterwards married Lady Anne Cromartie, widow of Edmund Atkins,
superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Southern Department, who died in
1761. He was related also to the Rutherfurds, for he calls John "cousin"
and had had him in charge in London before coming to America. In fact,
James Murray, David Murray, arid John Rutherfurd were all descended, in
the third generation and in different lilies, from a common great-
grandfather, Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh.
James Murray came to
Carolina in 1735, leaving "Johnnie" in London. He arrived in Charles
Town on November 27 of that year and was at Brunswick at the beginning
of 1736. There he rented a house of Roger Moore and opened a store, but
falling out with the Moores he went to Wilmington, bought a house and
lot there, and entered into the business arid social life of the town
and province. Later he acquired a plantation, "Point Repose," on the
Northwest at the mouth of Flood's Creek, and gradually drew out of trade
in order to devote himself to an agricultural and farming life. During
his thirty years of residence in the colon)' he held many important
offices in town and county and under the crown. He was at one time or
another commissioner for Wilmington, a justice of the peace, deputy
naval officer, secretary, clerk of the council and clerk of the crown,
deputy paymaster under Innes, a vestryman of St. Philip's, and for
thirty years (except for the period of his suspension, 1771763) a member
of the governor's council and after 1763 its president. He was on terms
of intimacy with Governor Johnston, but was unfriendly toward Governor
Dobbs, who suspended him from the council, and he was always
antagonistic to the Brunswick group led by Dry and the Moores.
He went to England in
1738, but came back the next year, bringing with him the young John
Rutherfurd. Both he and Rutherfurd were abroad from 1741 to 1743. For
the third time Murray crossed the water in 1744 to marry, as his first
wife, his cousin Barbara Bennet, who returned as far as Boston with him
in 1749, but joined him in the colony the next year. From that time,
until he withdrew permanently to Massachusetts in 1765, he continued to
reside in North Carolina. As a man of strong loyalist sympathies he was
out of touch with the revolutionary movement, whether in the South or in
New England, and toward the end of his career found himself obliged to
migrate again, and for the third time, from Massachusetts to Halifax,
where he died in 1780.
Murray was a man of
strong will and of a masterful temperament, though not a politician and
with little liking for the responsibilities of office. lie preferred the
quiet life of a merchant or a country gentleman, but at the express
request of Governor Johnston was persuaded to accept a position under
government and once in office the accumulation of posts became easier.
He had energy and when in public service was inclined to want his own
way. He quarrelled with Dobbs, who charged him with leading a cabal
against himself, and in all his relations with Rutherford played the
part of patron and friend somewhat more dictatorily than their
relationship warranted. He suffered severely from deaths in his family,
and though keeping his feelings well under control was frequently
desolate and troubled in spirit. He was given to pessimistic views of
life and the circumstances of the time weighed heavily UOfl him. He was
law-abiding, conservative, and cautious, without enthusiasm or strong
emotions, and he was as blind as was Miss Schaw herself to the
significance of the events taking place about him. He possessed none of
the qualities of a revolutionist.
John Rutherfurd.
John Rutherford, his
protégé and the father of the children who accompanied Miss Schaw to
America, was probably less than twenty years old when he came to the
colony, and for a while he lived with Murray at his house in Wilmington
and served as clerk in his store. In 1750, through the influence of
Dinwiddie, at that time surveyor- general of customs, he was appointed
receiver-general of quit-rents, the duties of which and of the deputies
thereto appointed in every county outside the Granville area, were to
"collect from the tenants of the king's lands the fee-farms or
quit-rents reserved to the crown and to account for and disburse the
same according to the instruction from the Sovereign." His profits arose
from the commissions allowed upon his receipt of these rents (N. C. R.
VII, 484). For reasons that need not be discussed here, he was removed
from this position by Dobbs, at the same time that he and Murray were
suspended from the council, and he was not restored until 1761, after he
had made a trip to England and Scotland and had presented his case to
the Treasury and the Board of Trade. After reinstatement he continued to
hold the position until 1775.
Rutherford by all
accounts was not well suited to the post, a difficult one at best and
made doubly so by the unwillingness of the colonists to [fleet their
obligations. Murray said that Rutherfurd was too good-natured and of too
easy a temper to be efficient. Dobbs charged him with indolence and
neglect of duty, but threw some of the blame for his earlier conduct
upon Murray himself, who (he said) wrote Rutherfurd's letters and had
him "entirely under his influence." It is always wise, however, to take
Dobbs's charges with caution. Rutherfurd made a satisfactory defence
before the Treasury and the Board of Trade and was able to impress upon
them the injustice of his dismissal.
Yet when all allowances
are made, the conclusion must be reached that Rutherfurd was not a
satisfactory receiver of quit-rents. It is quite likely that his failure
may have been due in part to the intricacies of the system and that
Dobbs's action may have been prompted by a desire to break up the junto
or cabal which he thought was working against him. But these reasons
will hardly serve to explain Governor Martin's strictures upon
Rutherfurd's conduct. Martin charged Rutherfurd with a want of "proper
diligence and exertion" and recommended his dismissal a second time as
one who was "in every respect utterly disqualified for the position."
"Mr. Rutherfurd is unhappily the receiver-general of His Majesty's
revenues," he wrote Lord Dartmouth in 1774, "of excellent temper but
strangely confused understanding, and actually disqualified by
invincible deaf- ness for public business" (N. C. R. IX, 973). of
Rutherfurd's deafness we have other evidence. In 1758, when in London,
he wrote Lord Granville that he wished to resign his seat in the
council, "because my hearing is so bad that I can't discharge my duty as
I could wish and desire" (ib., V, 959). It may be that his deafness had
something to do with his failure as receiver. Yet he continued to sit on
the governor's council to the end, served as a member of a court of
claims in 1773, was frequently on committees, and seems to have had no
trouble in carrying on ordinary conversation and doing his private
business.
There are ample
manifestations that Rutherfurd was energetic and efficient in many
directions. In 1751-1752 he obtained a number of judgments against the
estate of Colonel Robert Halton for nonpayment of quit-rents, seized
several parcels of Halton's lands, put them up at public vendue, and had
them sold to the highest bidder (Register's Office, Conveyances, B. C.,
24; Brunswick County Records, A, 12). He went to England and Scotland in
1758 and was gone three years obtaining a reversal of his suspension. He
defended himself with adroitness and vigor in the letters that he sent
to the Treasury and the Board of Trade. When in London in 1761 he wrote
a pamphlet, The Importance of the Colonies to Great Britain, which was
considered good enough to be printed. He and his brother Thomas, who
died in 1781, were both colonels of militia, one in New Hanover and the
other in Cumberland county. Of his frequent journeyings we have ample
testimony. He visited Charles Town a number of times and in 1768-1769
went as far as Georgia (South Carolina Gazette, March 30, 1769). He
served the colony well on two important commissions, involving tedious
travel and hard labor —one in 1767 to settle the boundary line with the
Cherokees, and the other in 1772, an undertaking of seventy-six days,
for which he was never paid, to determine the line between North and
South Carolina. Henry Laurens of Charles Town, whom he visited and with
whom he had business dealings, thought well of him. "A worthy man," he
calls him, "a sensible worthy man, of a good fortune, and an exceed-
ingly good planter arid farmer," and again, "an agreeable worthy man, a
good planter, farmer and mechanick." With him, Laurens says, he had many
talks "of new methods of planting and new articles to plant" (Laurens
Letter Books). Of Rutherfurds interest in agriculture, Miss Schaw gives
an interesting account, while what she says of his plantation does not
suggest either indolence or inefficiency.
In 1754, sometime after
May 6, Rutherfurd married Frances, the widow, first, of one Button (of
whom we know nothing more), and second of Governor Johnston. She was
Johnston's second wife and possibly his third, for such accounts as we
have of Johnston's life before he married Penelope Galland, Governor
Eden's stepdaughter, sometime between 1737 and 1741, would indicate that
he had been married before. However that may be, he married Mrs. Button
in 1751 and died himself at his seat. "Eden House," in Bertie county, in
1752. Frances was still a "young widow" when she married Rutherfurd, and
in appearance small, as we learn from Samuel Johnston's letter to his
son, 1754, in which he says, "Mrs. Rutherfurd has a brother come in, one
about seventeen years old, very small and like his sister; talks and
behaves like a man, makes me believe him older, but is probably designed
for Miss" (Hayes Collection). She became the mother of the three
children of Miss Schaw's narrative and herself died early in the year
1768. Who she was or where she came from originally we have not been
able to discover.
In the settlement of
Governor Johnston's will there was considerable controversy and even
litigation, and Rutherfurd was engaged for many years in closing up the
estate. That he did not perform this task to the satisfaction of the
Johnston family is well known. Samuel wrote to his son in 1757: "I don't
know what to think of Mr. Rutherfurd, he has never any money. He offered
me one order on you and when it came it was after this manner, pay such
and such people and the remaining part send to your father, which I
returned him" (Hayes Collection). The most troublesome questions were
the amount due Penelope under Henry Johnston's will and the distribution
of the arrears of Governor Johnston's salary. The latter was not
effected for nearly fifty years, as will be noted elsewhere (Appendix
X). In 1752 the British government owed Johnston's estate more than
£12,000, arrears of salary. Mrs. Rutherfurd put in a claim for this
amount and after considerable difficulty and expense Rutherford when in
England obtained a royal warrant, dated February 5, 1761 (Treasury 52:
51, p. 437), authorizing the payment. As the North Carolina quit-rents
were not sufficient for the purpose, the warrant was addressed to George
Saxby, receiver-general for South Carolina, instructing him to pay over
to the Johnston heirs the entire amount from the quit-rents of that
province. As late as 1767 we find Rutherfurd endeavoring to obtain from
Saxby, through Henry Laurens, attorney to the estate, payment of the sum
authorized by the Treasury. Before his death he had secured all but
£2018 of the whole, but as we shall see in discussing the later history
of the claim (Appendix X) he appropriated to his own use a larger share
of what he obtained than he was entitled to receive as administrator of
his wife's estate.
Rutherfurd began to
accumulate property early in the fifties. In 1755, the year after his
marriage, he was assessed in the Wilmington valuation of that year at
£225 and his taxables were rated at ten. He had a house in Wilmington
and was living there as freeholder as early as 1747. In 1749 he was
elected a town commissioner, but leaving the province at the time, he
was reelected in 1751 and continued to serve for a number of years. In
common with many others, among whom were his fellow Scots, Duncan, Schaw,
Ancrum, Robert Hogg, and George Parker, he was frequently cited for
neglecting to work on the streets, bridges, and wharves of the town—the
duty of every taxable—and at one time was subject to fines running as
high as £9 (Wilmington Town Records, passim). He was of the firm of
Rutherfurd & Co., dealers in lumber and merchandise, in 1751, and from
1762 to 1766 was in partnership with Alexander Duncan. He continued to
reside in Wilmington until 1758, when he went to England and Scotland,
where he obtained his restoration to the council, wrote his pamphlet,
secured from the Treasury the warrant authorizing the payment of
Governor Johnston's salary, and in Scotland negotiated a loan of £7440
with the aid of John Murray of Philiphaugh and another Scottish friend,
who guaranteed the loan with the royal warrant as security. Returning in
1761, he and his wife, with the money thus borrowed and other funds
obtained from the sale of some of their Wilmington property, purchased
of Maurice Moore, on December i, a plantation of 1920 acres at Rocky
Point on the north side of the Northeast beyond the bend, and removed
from Wilmington to reside in the country. He named the plantation "Bow-
land," and with this and other landed property, some of which he
acquired in 1766 (the Rockfish lands) and in 1768 (the Western Prong
lands), he became, as Henry Laurens called him in 1767, a man "of a good
fortune." He retained lands in Wilmington, had a tar house on Eagles
Island before 1769, and in 1768 petitioned for permission to erect a
public grist mill on an acre adjoining Rockfish Creek opposite the Holly
Shelter "pocósin."
He was living at "Bowland"
in September, 1768, but in that year his financial troubles began. His
wife, the executrix under Governor Johnston's will, having died some
months before, John Murray of Philiphaugh became alarmed for his
security. Rutherford had paid £4000 of the £7440 due, but seemingly was
unable to pay the remainder. Willing and desirous of giving further
indemnification, for Murray was meeting the interest on the bonds, he
handed over to Robert Schaw as trustee his entire property, including
his £i000 legacy from Duncan and a proportion of the debts due the firm
of Duncan & Rutherfurd, for the purpose of discharging the debt and
avoiding a suit in chancery. But this arrangement failed to satisfy
Murray, who in January, 1771, brought suit before the North Caro- lina
court of chancery, sitting at New Bern. The matter was referred to
Governor Tryon for arbitration who decided in Murray's favor and the
court confirmed his decision. Rutherfurd handed over to Murray in fee
simple ownership his Western Prong lands in Bladen county (4320 acres),
"Bowland" (1920 acres), his Sound lands (320 acres), and his Wilmington
real estate (i68 acres), valued altogether at £4300 proclamation money
(Register's Office, Conveyances, F. 95102, 327-329. Of this transaction
his son John said, in 1788: "Our father had nothing. John Murray of
Philiphaugh stript him of everything when he went out to Carolina,
except the property which my mother brought him, which was secured to
her by her marriage settlement* and again secured to us by decree in
chancery, when John Murray wanted to seize upon it as our father's
property." In 1774 Governor Martin spoke of Rutherfurd as "bankrupt in
point of fortune," and we know that the year before Rutherfurd had
written to William Adair in London expressing his desire to leave the
colony and asking that Mr. Abercrombie, the former agent, be requested
to inform him "if he hears of any good office at the Boards of Treasury,
Trade or Auditor's office." "At present," he adds, "Mr. McCulloh is
agent, but as he probably is to be dropped soon I have no objection to
being agent but do not wish to be obliged to him for any good office"
(Letter to William Adair, Pall Mall, dated Newbern, March 26, 1773,
Phillips Manuscripts).
But Rutherfurd did not
leave the province. If Martin, writing on April 6, less than a year
before Miss Schaw's arrival, is correct in his statements, then
Rutherfurd must have recovered very rapidly from his financial troubles,
for in the spring of 1775, when Miss Schaw visited his plantation, he
was controlling "Hunthill," an estate of more than 4000 acres, lying
between the Bald Sand Hills, adjoining New Exeter, on Holly Shelter
Creek, ten miles from Rocky Point and thirty miles from Wilmington. "I
have been at a fine plantation," she writes, "called Hunthill, belonging
to Mr. Rutherfurd, [on which] he has a vast number of negroes employed
in various works. He makes a great deal of tar and turpentine, but his
grand work is a sawmill, the finest I ever met with." Miss Schaw's
description is not exaggerated. The property had been bought for £2000
of Sampson Moseley in 1772, through D'Arcy Fowler, attorney at law of
Wilmington and later a loyalist, and plats of it may be found today in
the Wilmington records and among the manuscripts at Raleigh. It was a
fine estate, though only in part cleared and developed. According to the
testimony of John, Jr., and Samuel Graham, in charge of the forge, there
were 150 slaves, many of whom were valuable trades- men, more than 300
acres of land cleared and planted with corn and other grains, a valuable
sawmill and smith's forge for the iron work, and room, timber, and water
enough for two more sawmills, Cutting 20,000 feet of lumber a week.
There were also teams of twenty oxen, one hundred and fifty head of
cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep, and a great deal of valuable furniture
and many plantation implements. The whole estate furnished in 1781
enough to make several thousand barrels of pitch, tar, and turpentine
for British markets and a great quantity of shingles for the West
Indies. If Rutherfurd was bankrupt in April, 1774, and in possession of
this property at least as early as September, 1774, when Graham says
that he was first employed there, it is evident that he must have bought
it with his children's money—probably the £1780 obtained from the sale
of Conahoe and Possum Quarter (plantations in Tyrrell and Granville
counties which had been left to his wife by Governor Johnston), and have
held it in trust for them. He may have used also some of the arrears of
Johnston's salary, which belonged to them as their mother's heirs; he
may have been aided by Mrs. Corbin, for in her will she speaks of debts
incurred and negroes loaned, of which Rutherfurd was to make no
accounting; and he may have used the money left by Duncan and the debts
due him as a member of the firm, for these do not appear to have been
handed over to Murray in the final settlement. From a later indenture we
learn that the property was bought in trust for the two boys until they
should attain the age of twenty-one years (Register's Office,
Conveyances, F, 14-'5; H, 197-199; P, 152-155).
Rutherfurd, according to
his son's statement, "having done every- thing in his power to suppress
the distractions in North Carolina, before the arrival of his Majesty's
troops, took the first opportunity of joining Lord Cornwallis. When the
troops were withdrawn [from North Carolina, after the battle of
Yorktown], he was under the necessity of embarking with them for Chailes
Town for the protection of his person from the resentment which his
loyaltyhad stirred up against him, augmented by the discovery of his
having placed both his sons in his Majesty's service. Of the negroes
[150] belonging to him and his sons in their own right he could only
carry off 6 for want of room in the transport." All the negroes which
remained behind, the lands, mills, horses, cattle, utensils, and
furniture fell into the hands of the Americans, and Rutherfurd's waiting
man, Sandy, was murdered for having served as a guide in Lord
Cornwallis's army. Rutherfurd remained at Charles Town until what little
property he had remaining was nearly spent and his health and spirits
were so much impaired that sometime after March, 1782, he had to leave
America. He set forth on a vessel bound for England, but died at Cork,
at the age of sixty, sometime in the same year (Son's statement, Audit
Office Papers). He left no will.
The estimate of losses,
as given in the son's memorial of March 23, 1784 (Audit Office,
Loyalists Claims, 36, pp. 339-354), is as follows:
The effort of the
children to obtain in part a restitution of this property is dealt with
in Appendix X. |
