PRESENTATION OF THE PORTRAIT
OF
JUDGE ARCHIBALD D. MURPHEY
BY
HON. JOHN W. GRAHAM
27 OCTOBER, 1908
(582) May it please your Honors-. When the General Assembly of
1818 established the Supreme Court on its present basis, it also
provided by a supplemental act that, if a judge of the Supreme Court
should be incompetent to decide a case on account of personal interest in
the event, or some other sufficient reason, the Governor was authorized
to give a special appointment to a judge of the Superior Court, re¬
quiring him to sit with the other judges of the Supreme Court to hear
and determine all such cases. Under this law Governor John Branch
appointed Hon. Archibald 1). Murphey, then judge of the Superior
Court to act at May and November Terms, 1819, and June Term, 1820,
in place of Judge Leonard Henderson, who had been counsel in im¬
portant cases then before the Court. It has been deemed proper that a
portrait of this distinguished judge should take its place among those
with whom he served, and that, on the occasion of its presentation, some
outline of his character and public services should be given. At the
request of those of his descendants and relatives who have complied
with the desire of your honorable body to have his features
(583) speak from the walls of this room, adorned by so many of our
illustrious dead, I undertake this duty, as- a friendship extended
through more than three generations would not permit me to decline,
and I recognize that it is peculiarly appropriate that a resident of the
county of Orange should present a tribute to the memory of one who
in life served her well, added lustre to her fame, and now sleeps in
her soil.
Archibald DeBow Murphey was born in 1777 in the county of Cas¬
well, about two miles from the Red House and seven miles from Milton.
Here was the residence of his father, Col. Archibald Murphey, who
came from Pennsylvania in 1769, being a son of Alexander Murphey,
of York County, who,- or whose ancestors, had come from Ireland.
Colonel Murphey was the elork of the court, and, upon the invasion
of the British Army, closed his office, raised a company, and joined the
forces under General Greene. The mother of Judge Murphey was,
prior to her marriage, Jane DeBow, a daughter of Solomon DeBow, of
the Red House, in Caswell County, who had also come from Pennsyl-
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