My Genealogy Hound

Arthur Murray, editor and proprietor of The Press Eagle, Pine Bluff, is a native of that city, and was born on November 1, 1859. His parents removed from Virginia to Arkansas in 1852, and for some years prior and subsequent to the Civil War, the father, Judge John C. Murray, was judge of the Eleventh judicial circuit, and one of the leading lawyers of the State. The eldest brother of Mr. Murray was a West Point cadet and Confederate soldier, who was killed at the battle of Atlanta, Ga. In the closing year of the Civil War, two days prior to his death, Col. Edward Murray had received a commission as brigadier-general and was the youngest officer of that rank in the Confederate service, being only twenty-two years old when killed. Judge Murray dying in 1868, his son Arthur was thrown upon his own resources at a very early age, and was deprived of even a common school education. For several years he supported his widowed mother by peddling fruit upon the streets, and when twelve years old entered the old press office (that paper then being edited by Col. Wyatt Thomas) as ‘‘devil’’ or office boy. Young Murray mastered all departments of the printer’s art, and within eight years from the time he first entered the office, was a part owner and sole editor of the paper, which had in the meantime been connected with the Eagle. Later on he purchased his partner’s interest, and since 1883 Mr. Murray, has published and edited The Press Eagle unassisted and with unusual success. His journalistic career has been somewhat eventful, as he is a fearless writer, and has a faculty of attacking local and political abuses in so vigorous a manner as to make him many enemies among the corrupt classes. He has often been attacked upon the street for foiling the disreputable schemes of some designing mountebank or politician, but in each encounter of this kind he has preserved his honor and his life, though he has been called upon to exchange leaden missiles at short range more than once. In Southeast Arkansas it is now accepted as a fact that editor Murray is responsible for every expression of his paper, and that while doing injustice to none, he cannot be swerved from his convictions of right and duty, or be made to withdraw from any position he assumes as a journalist. His paper has a large and ever increasing circulation, and the profits thereof have made him independent of his newspaper business. Mr. Murray, by judicious investments in this rapidly developing city has accumulated about $35,000 worth of productive real estate, and is probably in better financial condition than any other newspaperman in the State. In personal appearance he is above the medium height and well proportioned, and his countenance indicates the quiet determination and strength of character that overcame the disadvantages of poverty and lack of education, and made him one of the representative citizens of the metropolis of Southeast Arkansas.