Sure Shot Tim Murphy: Revolutionary War Historical Figure

"Sure Shot Tim" Murphy was a revolutionary war hero that has been mostly forgotten in the annals of time. In his career this great hero had many accomplishments and even later in life amounted to great things despite the inability to read or write. The life of this fantastic American character can be divided into three sections, early life, time spent in combat for the American Army, and Later life. All these avenues held unique and amazing feats.

Not a large amount of information is known about the early life of Tim Murphy. He was born to Irish American parents named Thomas Murphy and Mary Lundy in the vicinity of Delaware Water Gap in 1751. By the time he was eight he and his parents moved to Pennsylvania. It was here that he was apprenticed to a wealthy family called the Van Campens. This was an important part in the development of the man that Tim Murphy would become. The area where he moved was highly wooded and prone to Indian attacks. His experiences here taught Murphy to be an excellent frontiersman and also led to his distaste for Indians and their seeming barbarity to his people. When he reached the age of 24 he enlisted in Captain John Lowdon's Company of Northumberland County Riflemen and began the second phase of his life.

In this unit he marched to the siege of Boston reaching the 600 mile destination in record time. In 1777 he was hand picked for his accuracy for the famed unit Morgan's Riflemen where he was to make a name for himself as the foremost marksman in a unit of marksmen. He was a centrifugal part of the victory at Saratoga where he single handedly pushed the tide of the battle in favor of the Americans by felling general Simon Fraser who was holding the British forces from route. After this important victory Murphy and Morgan's Riflemen joined Washington at Valley Forge and partook of its hardships. After this the Riflemen packed up to battle the Tory in the Mohawk Valley in New York where Murphy killed the nefarious Christopher Service who was the Tory leader. Next after his enlistment with Morgan's Riflemen ended he joined Captain Jacob Hager's Company of Colonel Peter Vrooman's Albany County Militia. He was captured while scouting with Captain Alexander Harper in the Delaware woods. He and Harper freed each other, took their 11 captors' weapons while they slept and silently knifed 10 of them leaving one alive to tell the tale. In 1780 Murphy's most astounding feat materialized, he and about 200 other militia men located in Middle Fort in the Schoharie Valley held off a force of 1,500 regulars, Tories, and Indians when he prevented the fort commander from surrendering and lead the opposing force to a pyrrhic situation and eventually commanded a force which harassed the opposing force all the way to Canada. His final military assignment was at Yorktown where he with Washington's forces defeated the British and secured liberty.

The last phase of his life was just as remarkable as his second phase albeit not as exciting. Murphy returned to Fultonham in the Schoharie Valley at the end of the war so that he could settle. Murphy was married twice, his first wife Peggy bore him five sons and four daughters. Years after the death of Peggy, he married Mary Robertson, and with her he moved to Charlottesville where he had four more sons. As mentioned in the beginning Murphy never learned to read or write nor did he ever apply for a veteran's grant or pension. This would not be a crutch for the great hero who was able to acquire a number of farms and a grist mill. This accomplishment of wealth was nothing compared to the fact that he became a local political power again despite his illiteracy. Later, he returned to Fultonham, where he died in 1818, at the age of 67 due to neck cancer.

It is a shame that the legendary Tim Murphy was been mostly forgotten but it is to be expected because he was a man of the trench not a leading General though he was just as important as some Generals. It is to men like Tim Murphy that we should pay our respects, for it is men like him who win wars and carry the Generals to Victory. An 8 foot copper monument set in granite is but a small tribute to such a warrior of freedom but it is still a great respect. The Timothy Murphy Monument can be seen at Middleburgh Cemetery off Huntersland Rd Middleburgh, NY.

Donald Norman Moran
The Saratoga Rifleman
American Revolution.org

Tim Murphy-The New York State Military Museum
state.ny.us