Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/565

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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it was to avoid religious persecution that the early ancestors left their native Scotland to settle in Xorthern Ireland, where they were permitted largely to direct their own local concerns, and to pursue their own methods of worship. Thus they gathered in com- munities, keeping aloof largely from those about them, and preserved in consentrated form the idioms, usages and faith of their forbears. On their arrival in Virginia they became at once Americans, fighting for civil and religious liberty, and developing the re- sources of the country through their indus- try and enterprise. The ancestors of the Mc]\Iurran family became prosperous, were prominent in local affairs, representing their community in the legislature, and setting forth by moral example and generous hos- pitality the highest and purest of domestic virtues. Of this family Joseph McMurran, born 1794, in Jefferson county, died August, 1854. He married, in December, 1822, Eliz- abeth Snodgrass, also of Scotch ancestry, who died in February, 1870. The}- had chil- dren : Margaret, Ann, Joseph (died in in- fancy), Elizabeth, Joseph, William Snod- grass, Maria, Mary Susan, James, and Lulu Peyson.

James McMurran was born May 29. 1840. in Shepherdstown, Virginia, and was edu- cated tmder the care of private tutors and at Delaware College. He started out in life in the mercantile business, and in July, 1861, Iiaving just passed his twenty-first birthday anniversary, he enlisted in Company G, of the Fourth Virginia Infantry, under Captain R. F. Trigg and Colonel James F. Preston, which became a part of Stonewall Jackson's brigade, of the Confederate army. In this service Mr. McMurran received a wound which caused his discharge from the army, and during the last year of the war he served as collector of taxes in the counties of Montgomery and Floyd. After this he went to Hillsville, Carroll coimty, Virginia, where he conducted a store, and at the same time edited a newspaper called the Carroll "Weekly News." He married. February 26, 1868, Sallie E. Early, born August 13, 1844, and their children were : James Early, men- tioned below ; Josephine, who became the wife of D. Kemper Kellogg, now treasurer of the Richmond. Fredericksburg & Poto- mac railroad, and they are the parents of five children.

James Early McMurran was born Decem-

ber 17. 1869. in Hillsville. where he attend- ed the public schools, and was subsequently a student at the Wytheville Military Acad- emy. Following this he studied at the Vir- ginia Military Institute, where he pursued a course in civil engineering. On leaving school he entered the service of the Norfolk & Western railroad, where he continued until 1S93. In the following year he was em- ployed in railroad construction work, and before its close settled at Newport News, where he was engaged by the Newport News Ship Building and Drydock Company, as a clerk. Here he won rapid promotion, and was made chief clerk of the coast de- partment, and also assistant auditor. Mr. McMurran is a man of ver}' quiet taste, and does not seek to mingle in public affairs. His chief diversion is shooting in the game sea- sons, and at other times he is very closely devoted to his work and his family. He has a very handsome home, where harmony rules and hospitality lends aid in promoting the joys of life. Mr. McMurran takes no part in politics, and does not hold member- ship in any clubs or societies other than the Presbyterian church, in which he is a faith- ful and devoted member. He has now spent twenty-one years in the service of the ship building company, and is appreciated as one of its most faithful, capable and trustworthy employees. He married, December 20, 191 1, Katie Pitman, daughter of Dr. William E. and Martha (Bell) Pitman, of Lynchburg, Virginia. They have two sons : James Ed- ward, born January 28, 1913, and Joseph Pitman, born November 17. 1914.

Richard Leonard Henderson. Richard Leonard Henderson, cashier of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, springs from ancient Virginia families, and embodies many of the characteristics and virtues which distinguished the pioneers of the Old Dominion. The name of Hender- son appears in Virginia as early as 1664, when Gilbert Henderson had a grant of five hundred acres in Accomac county, and James Henderson one of four hundred acres. In 1701 a James Henderson had a grant of one hundred and fifty-five acres in King and Queen county. The name appears to have been brought into Scotland in the Danish invasion of that country, and is of great an- tiquity. For four centuries the family has flourished in the county of Fyfe, Scotland,