Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 7).djvu/244

202 " Chrystal Jack & Co." (1889) ; " The Coral Ship " and "The White Conquerors " (1893) ; " The Fur Seal's Tooth" (1894) ; "Snow Shoes and Sledges " (1894); " A Young War Chief" (1895); "At War with Pontiac" (1896); "Through Swamp and Glade" (189G); and "The Painted Desert" (1897). Mr. Muiiroe has also edited a volume entitled " Eminent Men of Our Time."

MURPHY, Edward, Jr., senator, b. in Troy, N. Y.. 15 Dec, 1830. He was educated at Montreal, and at St. John's college, Fordham, N. Y., and has been a successful brewer in Troy, of which city he was mayor from 1875-'83. He was elected to the state legislature in 1875, and re-elected in 1877, 1879, and in 1881. Six years later he was elected chairman of the Democratic state committee of New York, and has been re-elected every year since 1887. He was a delegate to the national Democratic conventions of 1880, 1884, and 1888, and chairman of the delegation of 1892 ; he was also elected delegate-at-large to the convention of 1896, but illness prevented his being present. Mr. Murphy was elected U. S. senator in Jan- uary, 1893, as successor of Frank Hiscock, taking his seat in March. He served on several com- mittees, and was chairman of the committee on relations with Canada. In 1899 he was suc- ceeded by Cliauncey M. Depew (g. v.), a Repub- lican senator of New York city.

MURPHY, John Wilson, civil engineer, b. in New Scotland, Albany co., N. Y., 20 Jan., 1838; d. in Philadelptiia, 27 Sept., 1874. He was gradu- ated at Rensselaer polytechnic institute, and later designed a suspension bridge across Mohawk river at Tribes' Hill, in which he introduced a vertical truss to insure stiffness. He was also the first to use "pin connections" in constructing bridges. In 1856 he began to build iron bridges on what was known as the Murray- Whipple f)lan, asserting that it was quite as important to determine the elasticity of I lie iron as its breaking weight. The panic of 1857 temporarily put an end to his bridge- building. He therefore took up liis residence in Philadelphia, where he devoted himself to making designs for uumy bridges that were subse(iuently erected. In 1859 he again began to build. In 1860-'l he was chief engineer of Montgomery, Ala., and when Fort Sumter was fired U|)on strong inducements were offered him to remain and join the confederacy, but he declined, and was compelled to abandon all his instruments, his pa|)ers, library, and many valuable interests. In 1863 he was called upon by the government to replace a bridge over a branch of the Gauley river that had been destroyed by the Confederates. He contracted to build it in twenty-five days, but com- pleted it on the twenty-third. It was a suspen- sion bridge 530 feet in length, with a ten-foot roadway. In June, 1864, he designed and erected Union hall for the U. S. sanitary fair in Phila- delphia in forty days, making the greater part of the drawings at home at night. In 1869 he de- signed and built the pipe acjueduct across the valley of the Wissahickon at Valley Green for the water-supply of Germantown, Pit., to avoid forming a trap. One of his most important works is the South street bridge, Philadelphia.

MUSICK, John Roy, author, b. in St. Louis county. Mo., 28 Feb., 1849, and was graduated at the North Missouri state normal school. He studied law, was admitted to the Missouri bar in 1877, practising for five years, when he abandoned law for literary pursuits. He has devoted much time to journalism in his native state, is a member of the Society of American authors, and has written brief histories and numerous novels, chiefly of a, historical character, including " The Banker of Bedford," " Brother against Brother," " Calamity Row," "A Century Too Soon," "A Story of Bacon's Rebellion," " The Witch of Salem," " Hawaii, our New Possessions," " Cuba Libre," and " Lights and Shadows of our War with Spain " (New York, 1898), and " Columbian Historical Novels, com- prising the History of the United States in Twelve Stories" (12 vols., New York, various dates). MYER, Isaac, author, b. in Philadelphia, 5 March, 1836. He was graduated at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania in 1857, studied law, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar, and later to that of New York city, where he has resided for many years. Before removing from his native state he was U. S. commissioner for western Pennsylvania. Mr. Jlyer, who is a manager of the Society of American authors, has contributed many articles to the magazines on historical, legal, and oriental subjects, and is the author of the follow- ing works : " Presidential Power over Personal Liberty" (Philadelphia, 1862); "The Waterloo Medal" (1885); " (^abbalah : The Philosophical Writings of Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol, or Avicebron " and " On Dreams, by Synesios of Cyrene " (1888) ; and " Scarabs : The History, Manufacture, and Religious Symbolism of the Scarabieus in Ancient Egypt" (New York, 1894). Ills latest work is "The Oldest Books in the World, taken from Papyri and Monuments " (19(X)).