William Henry Harrison Murray

Known as "Adirondack Murray," he wrote many books about theAdirondacks. He graduated from Yale in 1862. He was a preacher inthe Park Street Church in Boston, MA.

Birth: Apr. 26, 1840 Guilford, CT
Death: Mar. 3, 1904, USA
Rev.W.H.H. "Adirondack" Murray, Congregational minister and author ofreligious and outdoor books including "Adventures in the Wilderness;Camp Life in the Adirondacks" (1869) which popularized the north as aresort and health cure destination. Murray was pastor of the Park St.Church in Boston 1868-1874. His life-long love of the woods inspiredothers to follow in his footsteps. He was a Yale graduate.
"I am the resurrection and the life, he who believeth in me, though hewere dead, yet shall he live."
Burial:Murray Cemetery, Guilford, New Haven County, Connecticut, USA

This from a bio of the artist Homer:
The reputation of the Adirondacks as a realm little touched bycivilization, and a place essentially for hardy men, had gainedwidespread currency in 1869 from William Henry Harrison Murray's bestselling Adventures in the Wilderness, a book Homer surely knew.[9]Murray extolled the health-giving and spirit-enhancing virtues of alife in New York's northern woods. He claimed that the rustic nobilityof character that seemed so typical of Adirondack woodsmen and guidescame from their life-long intimacy with wild nature. His energeticprose left little doubt that visiting sportsmen and other outsiderswould profit from association with men of this sort as well as withthe great forest itself He said little about women, however, eventhough they constituted much of the region's resident population.Indeed, the widow Eunice Baker owned the boarding house that Homerfrequented in Minerva, and for many years ran it with her daughtersJuliette and Jennie.

Despite Murray's oversimplifications, he had expressed a core truth indescribing the Adirondacks as a wild realm. Compared to such othertourist and sporting regions of the Northeast as the Catskills, theBerkshires, and the White Mountains, the great forest of northern NewYork was less accessible and largely undeveloped as a tourist haven.Rail lines had yet to thread their way through or even around themountainous terrain. Paradoxically, Murray's celebration of the vastregion's wildness instigated the building of more summer hotels andresorts. Yet even as the seasonal population increased, the belief inwilderness as the defining quality of the Adirondacks reverberated inthe national consciousness. For fully a generation following hisbook's publication, Murray's vision continued to inform the paintingsof many Adirondack artists, Homer included.

The Brothers Murray - Chauncey Dickinson & William HH
The following review of the life of William H. H. Murray was writtenby his daughter Mrs. Ruby Murray Orcutt of Madison, Connecticut andwas read before the Dorothy Whitfield Historical Society, Inc atGuilford, Connecticut 16 Oct 1931.
My father was b 26 Apr. 1840 in the section of Guilford known asNortontown, the fourth child in a family of three girls and two boys.His father was Dickinson Murray of Scotch descent, and his mother wasSally Munger largely of English blood. Dickinson Murray's mother wasDiadema Norton a descendant of Thomas Norton, who settled about themiddle of the seventeenth century in the northeastern part of Guilfordlater called Nortontown.
Thus my father was closely identified with that section by blood aswell as by birth.
Sally Munger was one of the North Madison Mungers, a daughter ofChauncey Munger. Previous to her marriage she taught in the districtschools, something unusual in those days over a hundred yrs ago whenmost of the teachers were men. She was a woman of keen intellect andinclined to be serious-minded. Her people are reported to have beenvery religious and somewhat visionary. Dickinson was of the oppositetype. He was an interesting talker and debater, buoyant in temperamentand very energetic. He was a ship carpenter by trade, a hard worker,but improvident. These things I mention since it seems to me that myfather's character was a composite of his parents' and by consideringtheir lives it is easier to understand this.
Old friends of my father have told us that in his boyhood he was bothstudious and prankish. He learned easily, was a constant reader andearly had a reputation as a debater. His religious cant must havedeveloped early because his youthful playmates soon discovered that hecould take this part of a minister best when the game was 'playingchurch' because he could pray the longest and hardest. His brotherChauncey, three yrs older, also a very able boy, and who later becamea minister was more conventional and less tempestuous than my father.The boys were always together yet not too near. One old residentremarked that when Bill Murray was seen to pass the house you couldcount on seeing Chauncey in about ten minutes go by in the samedirection.
A few of my father's boyhood pranks have come down to us. Once he setfire to a newspaper held by a beau of his elder sister Sarah, a wooerfar too leisurely to suit my father's notions of how a courtshipshould proceed. Another time to liven up things in a district schoolhe placed a small charge of gunpowder in the wood stove. He was a veryfast walker and on walking home from evening prayer meeting at Madisonwith his brother and sisters, usually did not remain with the groupbut outdistanced them. On one such occasion he had not got very farahead when he stumbled over a skunk and had to bury his clothes beforeentering the house. The other children said it served Bill right forhurrying on in the way he always did. This story was related to me bymy aunt.
My father attended district school at Nortontown under a teacher whosename was Meigs. Like many of the school masters of those days he was aman well educated in the classics and was prepared to teach capablestudents most of the subjects necessary for entrance to college. Underhim the Murray boys made a beginning in Latin. Greek, algebra andliterature. When the Guilford Institute opened, its representativescame to urge my father's mother to send her boys there to prepare forYale. She needed no urging and both boys went, walking the five milesnight and morning. My father entered Yale in 1858 but how long heattended the institute I do not know. I would be very glad if thisdate could be supplied to me, but few if any of his schoolmates arenow living.
The problem of four yrs at Yale now confronted my father and hisbrother. Their parents were poor and probably were able to contributevery little towards the higher education of these two sons.
A wealthy and childless man who had been impressed with the promiseand ability of William Murray offered to pay his way at college if hewould take the surname of his benefactor. This my father refused todo. The conditions however, were accepted by another Guilford boy wholater became a distinguished lawyer. Chauncey Murray secured aposition as waiter to earn his board and did other work to helphimself along. My father walked from New Haven to Guilford each weekend and carried back a supply of bread, butter and other foodsprepared by his mother and elder sisters. These devoted women alsobought and made the boy's clothing (they were expert seamstresses inthose days) and I have a picture of the two taken in my father'sfreshman year at college, wearing their academic hats to surmounttheir homemade clothes. These and other expedients afforded them ameans of livelihood during their struggle for an education. Inaddition my father's best source of income was farm work of all kindsbut especially the harvesting and threshing of grain performed duringhis summer vacations.
He was graduated from Yale in 1862 at the age of 22 yrs. On the day ofgraduation as I have been told he married Isadora Hull of East River.He had complained of the slowness of his brother-in-law's courtship.Apparently he was on the dot with his own. How the struggling youngcouple made out during those early years I do not know. My father hadnow to complete his training as a minister. This he did at EastWindsor, Connecticut and under private instructors.
His first work in the ministry was at Washington, Connecticut inLitchfield County for about a year in the capacity I believe, ofassistant to the pastor or acting pastor. He then went to Greenwichstone church, Greenwich, Connecticut about 1864-1865. His eloquenceand charm attracting attention immediately, he was called to Meridenand remained two yrs, 1866-67. At each of these pastorates he madehosts of friends who were to remain loyal to him throughout his life.There was also some criticism quite naturally, of the young pastor'sinformality and originality of ideas and conduct. He was never one topattern his life after others but pursued his way with a freedom ofstep, sincerity and independence of thought, a lack of ostentation andhypocrisy that endeared him to the more liberal minded, while it leftthose more bound by convention very much at a loss to understand him.
It was while at Meriden that my father, already a finished marksmanand delighting in hunting and fishing and out of door life in general,inaugurated his yearly trips to the Adirondacks during his summervacations. His instructive sense of authorship, joined to his desireto spread the doctrine of out of door life, led him to write'Adventures in the Wilderness' in the form of short stories orsketches, many of them humorous, some serious. This little bookpublished first in 1869 had an immediate and tremendous success. Fromall parts of the country the Murray Rush for the Adirondacks commendedand caricatures appeared in the newspapers depicting 'Murray's Fools'.Hotels and camps were few. Those that existed had been hurriedlythrown together to accommodate as many tourists as possible. Guestsslept on the floors and tables and yet seemed to enjoy themselves. Norwere the tourists men only. Women who had never dreamed ofout-of-door life as we know it, yielded to the example of the popularpreacher and his friends and spent their summer vacations in thewoods.
Mean while criticism was rife among the older element of the churchdeacons. In his book 'Deacons' printed later, my father states that nominister of his day was supposed to take a step longer than 14 inches.This being the case, it is not unnatural that a minister who tooktrips to the wilderness, was an expert marksman and woodsman and whounblushingly displayed a liking for fast trotting horses, should comein for his share of condemnation. However the more liberal among thechurch officers as well as the great majority of his congregation,continued to acclaim the young pastor, the fervor and eloquence ofwhose preaching could not but gain him recognition as one of therising young preachers of New England.
In 1868 after two yrs at Meriden he was called to be pastor of thePark Street Church in Boston, a very important post at that time. Herehe remained for seven yrs. During this period in addition to hispreaching and clerical work, he continued to write tales and storiesthe central figure of which was John Norton the Trapper. Thischaracter embodies the author's ideal of our pioneer forefathers. JohnNorton is sturdy in mind and body, resourceful in all emergencies, atrue woodsman handy with a rifle, a philosopher and friend to thevarious men who came his way in the wilderness.
The story 'John Norton's Christmas' is considered to be theoutstanding work in the series of Adirondack Tales. The others are:John Norton's Vagabond, a companion work, The Story the Keg told Me,The Story of the Man who Missed It, The Man who didn't Know Much, TheMystery of the Woods (unfinished), Henry Herbert's Thanksgiving. 'TheStory of the Man who didn't Know Much' while not equalling theChristmas story in number of sales, came nearest to it in popularity.
While in Boston my father founded and published 'The Golden Rule' aliterary weekly to which he contributed largely and in which many ofhis works as well as his weekly sermons were first printed. Meanwhilein Guilford he owned and conducted a stock farm of considerable size,as many as eighty thoroughbred Morgan horses being housed there at theheight of its activity. In connection with this enterprise brought outa book called 'The Perfect Horse' a tribute to the animals he loved sowell. Other stories about horses are the humorous sketch called'Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney' also 'A Ride with a Mad Horse in aFreight Car,' which was used for many years by elocutionists andentertainers. The remains of the great stock barn and vestiges of theracetrack behind it may still be seen in Nortown today.
In 1874 prompted by an increasing resentment of the interference ofhis deacons and with characteristic independence and completedisregard of the construction that might be placed on his action, heresigned from pastorate of the Park Street Church and devoted himselfentirely to his literary work for a period of one year. In '75 howevermost of his former congregation having remained loyal to him, waspersuaded by its representatives to open an independent church. Thishe decided to do and for three years he addressed packed audiences atMusic Hall. The place was filled to overflowing, camp chairs wereplaced in the aisles and entrances and it is recorded that even thesteps and adjacent sidewalks were crowded.
At this period my father was doubtless at the height of his career. Hewas in his middle thirties possessed of tireless energy, enthusiasm, aburning desire to preach the truth as he saw it, a longing also fortime to continue his creative work, with no taste whatever for theroutine part of clerical life such as parish calls and socialactivities in general, with tremendous physical energy whichnecessitated the outlet afforded by his stock farm, his trips into thewilderness, his hunting and fishing, with the strong-headedness thatwas his from first to last with exceeding personal charm which madehim much sought after and exposed him to many temptations not all ofwhich he was able to resist.
In 1878 at the end of the third year of work with his independentcongregation, he resigned permanently from the ministry after sixteenyrs of clerical life. At about this time he separated from his firstwife and in the course of two or three years they were formally div.From 1878 to 1886 he continued his literary work, adding to hisalready considerable list such books as 'The Busted Ex-Texan', certainother collections of short stories and numerous addresses on varioussubjects. His home ties being broken he traveled extensively in thiscountry, spending much time in the south and west. He visited Englandand South Africa. He also filled many lecture engagements in Canadaand United States.
It was while on a lecture tour in Canada that, in 1885, he met FrancesRivers, my mother, an English Canadian, many yrs his junior, and anative of Glouscester county, New Brunswick. In Sept of '86 they weremarried. They first settled in Burlington, where my father wascommodore of the Champlain Yacht Club and owned a yacht called theChamplain which I believe was built by Philo Blatchley of East RiverBridge. He now entered the lecture field more intensively than ever,being managed by the Redpath Lyceum Bureau of Boston and one fruit ofthis period was the little book 'Lake Champlain and its Shores'. Hisinterest in writing was still keen and he planned works that were tobe finished later. They remained in Burlington until 1891.
Someone now wrote my father that his birthplace and former home inGuilford was for sale and he was immediately consumed with a desire toagain own and dwell in his ancestral home. Accordingly, in the springof 1891 my parents with their two small dau. moved from Burlington,Vermont to Guilford, occupying first the house known as the CharlesFrancis house, where their third dau was b and a little later in 1893,moving into the Murray Homestead where the youngest dau came into theworld.
Up to about 1900 my father was still active in literary work andproduced the book 'Daylight Land' an account and description of a tripover the Canadian Pacific railroad then just being opened: also thecompanion idylls 'Mamalons' and 'Ungava', sagas of John Norton's earlylife in the north woods and considered by the author to be his finestliterary endeavor. These idylls are in fact prose poems of greatbeauty and finished literary form. Two other poems 'The Leaf of RedRose' and 'The Blind Indian Maiden' represent my father's only effortin blank verse. 'The Old Apple Tree's Easter' beloved by many, belongsto this period also. He meanwhile lectured widely throughout NewEngland and New York, giving readings from his works and especially of'John Norton's Christmas' which in all he read five hundred timesbefore New England audiences.
My father's family of four daughters coming so late in his life, wasto him a constant source of interest and delight. As the problem ofhis children's education became imminent, the inadequacies andlimitations of education en masse as practiced in our public schoolsapparently filled his with very much the same distrust that it doesthoughtful parents of today.
In an effort to give his children something finer, something freer,something, more likely to release in them such endowments as might betheirs, he devised an original plan of education for young children.This plan is described in the final work to come from his pen, 'How Iam educating my Daughters', a book that met with rather unusualsuccess.
Beginning about 1901 the wear and tear of his busy life and strenuoustemperament began to tell on his naturally strong constitution, yet hewas optimistic and seldom appeared to think of the possibility ofdeath. As illness increased his great wish was to be cared for by hisfamily, and this wish his devoted wife and elder daughters fulfilled.I have the happy memory of hearing my father say that life had been sofull of good things for him and that if the next world held only halfof the sweetness and delight of this one, he would be well content. Hedied very peacefully surrounded by his family on 3 Mar 1904, not quite64 yrs of age and was laid to rest in accordance with his owninstructions, a few rods south of the house in which he was born.
A newspaper of that period speaking editorially of Mr. Murray says inpart: 'Adirondack Murray was a well known character whose reputationas a preacher of the gospel and an owner and driver of fast horses wasnation-wide. He came to Greenwich in 1864 at the age of 24. He stoodover six feet in height, was straight as an arrow and of massivephysique. His large well shaped head was covered with abundant blackhair. As a pulpit orator he was incomparable. There was a peculiarcharm in his delivery, a magnetism in his presence and a profoundlogic in his reasoning which rendered his talks positive rhetoricalstudies.
There was no egotism, no narrowness in his ideas. To hear him was torealize his powers of mind. To meet him was to comprehend his grace ofmanner and to know him was to appreciate his goodness of heart. It isnot strange therefore that his memory still lingers in Greenwich.....'