Chas. M. Murphy
HON. CHARLES M. MURPHY.
BY JOHN B. STEVENS, JR.
We live in days when the success of men apparently born to lives of grinding toil is a pregnant sign of the times. Such opportunities are now open to him who has a good order of ability, with high health and spirits, who has all his wits about him, and feels the circulation of his blood and the motions of his heart, that the lack of early advantages forms no barrier to success. A striking illustration of the truth of these statements is exhibited in the following sketch.
Charles M. Murphy, son of John and Mary M. (Meader) Murphy, was born in Alton, Belknap county, N. H., November 3, 1835. In 1842 his parents moved to Barnstead, N. H., and settled upon the Tasker farm at the south end of the town. Here the child grew in stature, and filled out and braced his frame by hard manual labor.
Scanty record is left of these years of severe work and continuous struggle; but there is little doubt that the discipline developed an indomitable will and sturdy self-reliance—which alone enable poor men's children to grapple with the world—that under more favorable circumstances might never have shown their full capacity of force and tenacity.
Again, it is widely believed—and nowhere more strongly than in opulent cities and busy marts—that a boy is better bred on a farm, in close contact with the ground, than elsewhere. He is quite as likely to be generous, brave, humane, honest, and straightforward, as his city-born contemporary; while, as to self-dependence, strength, and stamina, he ordinarily has a great advantage over his rival.