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JAMES WILLIAM MURRAY,
a public-spirited citizen, who identifies himself most
closely with the life and affairs of Auburn, Maine, is a son
of Dennis Murray, a native of County Cork, Ireland,
where the elder man was born in the year 1827, and came to
the United States with his parents when but seven years of
age. The family settled in Portland, where the lad
grew to manhood and in a course of time entered the employ
of the railroad. Here he was promoted to the position
of foreman of a crew of men and continued to hold this
position during the greater portion of his life.
Dennis Murray married Mary Crooke like himself a
native of Ireland, born in Kilkenny, and came to the United
States as a girl of nine years of age with her parents.
They settled in Gotham, Maine, where she grew up to young
womanhood and eventually met Mr. Murray. They
made Portland their home and there their deaths occurred in
1898 and 1914, respectively, Mr. Murray being
seventy-two years of age and his wife seventy-seven at the
time of their decease. They were the parents of seven
children, of whom five are living at the present time
(1917). Mr. Murray's grandfather was Nial
Murray, who lived and died at Cork, Ireland, where he
was engaged in farming.
Born Aug. 1, 1869, at Webster, Maine, James William
Murray, son of Dennis and Mary (Crooke) Murray,
passed the first twenty years of his life in his native
town. During that time he attended the public schools
and as there were no high schools at that time in the town,
took up special studies in which he proved himself to be a
student of intelligence and aptness. Upon completing
his studies, the young man secured a position as paymaster
in the woolen mill at Webster and continued in this employ
until the year 1911. In that year he came to Auburn,
and was appointed by Governor Plaisted, of
Maine, to fill the unexpired term as registrar of probate
for Androscoggin county. Mr. Murray has
been extremely active and energetic in the general affairs
of Auburn and is a well known figure in the social life
there. His hobby, if he can be said to have any, is
the national game of baseball and he de scribes himself as a
"fan."
For the amount of schooling that Mr. Murray
has received, he is a man of remarkably broad education and
the widest reading. A good general education is quite
impossible to gain in our public schools, but Mr.
Murray is a man of unusual erudition and of great
special knowledge of many branches of culture. The
reason for this is to be found in the fact that he is a
natural scholar, one of those whose study by no means stops
when they leave school for the last time. It is then
only commencing and during their entire life they continue
to be students, learning from everything with which they
come in contact. It is this which can be said to have
caused Mr. Murray's success in the business
world. He is a self-made man in a larger sense than in
which the term is generally used, in the sense, that is,
that he made of himself everything that is possible in every
department of his character and career.
Source; Maine, A History -
Vol. 5 - Published 1919 - Page 308 |
