He was the first sheriff of what would become Fremont County, before there was a Fremont County, and even before there was a Wyoming. John R. Murphy was appointed sheriff of Carter County, Dakota Territory, by Andrew Jackson Faulk, the third Dakota Territory Governor, in 1868.
Murphy was a pioneer to the South Pass country, but he came with a well-established pedigree.
He was born in Macon County, Illinois, on June 29, 1822.
When he was just six years old, gold was discovered near Dahlonega. Tales of incredible wealth found in the mountains of the southern edge of the Appalachian Mountains filled local newspapers and spread by word of mouth.
By the time young Johnny was 10, the government was forcibly removing the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole on the tragic “Trail of Tears” to “Indian Territory,” modern Oklahoma.
All of these events unfolded before Murphy was a teenager.
As a young man, John began to hear tales of the California Gold Rush. By the time the news reached rural Macon County, the stories had gold as large as a man’s fist lying on the ground, ready to be picked up.
John bought into the frenzy and headed west on a wagon train.
John R. Murphy – Interview 1886 – Wind River Mountaineer
“Hearing of the gold excitement in California in the year 1849, I was seized with the desire to leave my native home and country and cross the plains and mountains to the Pacific slope and investigate the reports which came from this far western country. Acting upon this idea I bade parents, friends and home adieu, and arrived where the beautiful city of Sacramento now stands, on the third day of August 1849. At that time the town site had just been surveyed, and there was not a single house, nor even a piece of lumber on the ground. There was one large tent and the succotash tree on Jay Street, while there were several other tents scattered around over the ground now by that was destined to become the liveliest place of a flourishing city.”
After several fruitless years, John found his fortune at the Murphy Mines, no relation, and began to find gold in 1854.
He sold the mine in 1857 for $17,000, equivalent to about $650,000 today.
Information from Fort Ridgely and South Pass Wagon Road. Title page of the 1862 congressional report examining the accounts of the federal wagon-road project. 37th Congress, 2nd Session, House Executive Document No. 35.
John took a federal contract for a proposed transcontinental wagon route to the Pacific.
The prospect of travel across the Great Plains to California was on the minds of many speculators in the mid-1850s. William Nobles of St. Paul, Minnesota, was one of the few dreamers who attempted to put this idea into practice.
Congress appropriated $50,000 on July 22, 1856, for construction of the Fort Ridgely-to-South Pass Road.
Murphy took some of his prospecting fortune to Minnesota, where he raised cattle, corn, and oats. He was an experienced driver who could handle a freight wagon too.
He took the contract with Nobles and began hauling material for the road.
The effort fell far short of hooking up with the Oregon/California Trail atop South Pass. Only about 250 miles of the route were completed, ending near modern Chamberlain, South Dakota.
Murphy sold $185 worth of cattle, oats, and hay to the effort, equivalent to about $7,500 today. He earned $390 as a driver with the company, equivalent to another $16,000 by contemporary standards.
Construction stalled in 1859, and the proposed road project was abandoned in 1862. Transcontinental travel would have to wait for the Union Pacific at the end of the decade.
He continued raising cattle, a lucrative business as the Civil War drove the demand for beef. He raised beef until the war ended, but gold fever was still in his blood.
In 1866, he arrived in Butte City, Montana Territory, during the Virginia City gold rush. He made it to Butte in early June.
John R. Murphy – Interview 1886 – Wind River Mountaineer
“I was quite successful in the mining business in Montana. Left there for California on the 20th of May 1867. Hearing of the excitement in what was then known as Carter County, Dakota, I traveled to the place. Arrived at South Pass camp on the 13th of June, ’67. “
There were about 75 miners in camp when he arrived, mostly from California.
The Carissa mine had just been opened by Harry Reidel, Frank Marshall, Josh Hubbard, and Harry Hubbard.
South Pass was still a wild, untamed region of the West, prone to attack by Cheyenne, Oglala, and Arapaho war parties.
On June 22, Captain Sawtelle and two other men were killed in a raid on the camp.
The raid scattered the miners, some heading as far south as Green River City on the Union Pacific. Murphy was one of them.
He returned to South Pass 12 days later in a group of 10 heavily armed miners and had no immediate trouble from Native American raiders.
Atlantic City and Miner’s Delight were founded soon after his return.
An influx of miners swelled South Pass’s population to 125. There were no other settlements aside from Fort Bridger in the western reaches of Dakota Territory.
South Pass was named the seat of newly created Carter County, Dakota Territory, and Murphy was sworn in as sheriff. He was the first in a succession of sheriffs serving an area that would eventually become part of Fremont County.
He was later appointed assistant United States assessor.
His term as sheriff was short-lived. The Wyoming Territory was separated from the Dakota Territory in 1869.
John R. Murphy – Interview 1886 – Wind River Mountaineer
“In this year Major Baldwin moved his family to his ranch on Baldwin Creek, when it was necessary to watch as well as pray, and every man had to keep an ever watchful eye on his gun. The Indians became still more troublesome in 1869, stealing nearly all the horses in the settlement and murdering a great many whites.
On March 28th, ’70, Frank Irwin, a son of Dr. Irwin, now a resident of Lander, was killed by the Indians within one half mile of Atlantic City. On the same day, at St. Mary’s on the Sweetwater, three other men were killed by the Indians. The tribes that committed these depredations were Arapahos and Sioux.”
John Allen Campbell was appointed the first governor of Wyoming Territory. He called for a September 8, 1869, election.
John McGlinchey was elected sheriff of Sweetwater County. Carter County was renamed Sweetwater at the same time.
The voting was done at the J. K. Moore Store at Fort Brown.
With a newly elected sheriff of Sweetwater County, John Murphy was out of a job. The job of a county sheriff was nearly impossible to fulfill in territorial Wyoming. Sweetwater County stretched from Colorado to Montana, encompassing the future counties of Sweetwater, Fremont, Sublette, Hot Springs, Washakie, Big Horn, and Park.
Murphy took some of the money from the California gold fields and built the Atlantic Hotel in 1868, anticipating a short career as sheriff.
Murphy ran the Atlantic Hotel for just a year, turning a nice profit. He sold it to Elizabeth Cosgrouse in 1869 for the rock-bottom price of $100. The lucrative deal for Elizabeth led to many rumors and much speculation among locals.
John was 47 years old when he sold the Atlantic Hotel.
John briefly opened a saloon on the south side of Grant Street, but he had enough of South Pass and decided to head north.
He had money from his many earlier ventures and decided to move to the Popo Agie River, near present-day Lander.
John Murphy watched the town grow around the expanding Wind River Indian Reservation, with its headquarters at Fort Brown, renamed Fort Washakie in 1878, just a few years after John arrived south of the fort.
John Murphy was a lifelong bachelor. He took up drinking as his favorite pastime, frequenting the local saloons of early Lander. It proved to be his demise.
A colorful character known as “Uncle John” by many local residents, John R. Murphy died on July 13, 1888.
Fremont Clipper – July 19, 1888
An Old Pioneer Called Home.
“John Murphy died in Lander on the 13th after a protracted illness, of a complication of diseases and old age.
Biography.
John Murphy was born in Macon County, Ill. on the 29th day of June 1822. He was therefore sixty-six years old at the time of his death. He received a common school education and at the age of 27 was seized with the gold fever and went to California in the year 1849, landing at Sacramento on the 3d day of August of that year; at that time there was not a house there; and the town site had just been surveyed. He discovered a very rich placer mine in 1850 and named it the Murphy. Two years later he sold this mine for $17,000. With this money he engaged in the stock business, which he followed with varying success until June 1866, when he emigrated to Butte, Montana, having again been seized with the mining fever. There he was quite successful and again left for California in 1867. He did not stay long in California; hearing of the gold excitement at South Pass, which was then in Carter county, Dakota Territory, he started for that place, arriving there on the 10th day of June 1867, remaining in this vicinity ever since.
In 1868 he was appointed sheriff of Carter County by the governor of Dakota. He also held the office of assistant U. S. assessor under D. M. Mills. At the formation of the territory of Wyoming in 1869, Mr. Murphy lost his position as sheriff and also that of assessor, and from that time on his life was passed as is that of most frontiersmen, sometimes fighting Indians, sometimes farming a little and trafficking in various ways with but indifferent success owing, perhaps, to too strong an appetite for spirituous liquors, which, as has been the case with many otherwise good men, was the bane of his latter life, and as the cold clods fell upon the coffin of “Old Uncle John,” as he was familiarly called, we could but wish that his last days might have been more prosperous and offered a better example to the young.”
A prospector, miner, sheriff, rancher and finally just an old local character, John R. Murphy filled many roles as present-day South Pass City grew from Nebraska to Dakota to Wyoming Territory and from the seat of Carter County, Dakota Territory, to Sweetwater County, Wyoming Territory. Eventually, both the town and John R. Murphy settled into memory.
John R. Murphy was a man of the times. As migrants on the Oregon Trail often said of reaching the West Coast, “I have seen the elephant.” John saw the elephant many times.