Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/390

 again chosen mayor. In 1882 he was elected to represent the Second District in Congress and was a member of the committees on rivers and harbors and on railroads and canals. On the latter committee he worked faithfully to secure an appropriation for the Hennepin canal. Mr. Murphey was reëlected in 1884, serving four years. He died in Washington on the 11th of December, 1893. JOHN S. MURPHY was born in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, in 1847, and acquired his education in the public schools and the printing office. While young he came with his parents to Iowa, locating at Anamosa. He became an apprentice in the office of the Dubuque Herald in 1859, and after acquiring a knowledge of the art of printing, secured a position with the Globe-Democrat establishment at St. Louis, doing editorial work for several years, but finally returning to Dubuque. In 1879 he became editor of the Dubuque Daily Telegraph. He developed fine editorial ability, making the Telegraph one of the most prominent advocates of "free silver" in the Mississippi valley. Mr. Murphy became an acknowledged leader of the Bryan wing of the Democratic party in the middle west and was one of the ablest supporters of the Nebraska orator for President in 1896. “He was an evangelist of labor, gauging every movement by what he believed to be for labor's weal or detriment.” In October, 1901, the Dubuque Herald, one of the oldest and ablest Democratic journals in Iowa, was consolidated with the Telegraph under the editorial management of Mr. Murphy. His industry was unsurpassed and he died at his desk in the midst of his labors on the 10th of February, 1902. JOHN A. NASH, minister and educator, was born in Chenango County, New York, July 11, 1816. He was reared on a farm in Otsego County, and at the age of twenty entered the preparatory department of Madison University graduating from the Theological Seminary in 1844. His first pastorate was Watertown, N. Y. Coining to Iowa in 1851 he located at Des Moines which was henceforth his home. He immediately organized a Baptist church and was its pastor for eighteen years, teaching at the same time. In 1853 he opened a select school which soon grew into Forest Home Seminary. It was resolved to establish a Baptist institution at the Capital and in 1865 the University of Des Moines was the result. In August, 1872, Mr. Nash became acting president and soon after president, which position he held until 1883. Dr. Nash accomplished a great religious as well as educational work, founding two Baptist churches in Des Moines and nearly thirty others throughout central Iowa. He was an untiring worker in the temperance reform, canvassing the central portion of the State for the prohibitory liquor law. The degree of D. D. was conferred upon him by the University of Chicago in 1877. He died at his home in Des Moines in 1890.