Nicholas Murray

Alfred Webb

1878

Murray, Nicholas, D.D., a distinguished divine and author, was born at Ballinasloe, 25th December 1802. He went to the United States in 1818, and was apprenticed to the printing house of Harper Brothers. Subsequently he studied theology and became pastor of a Presbyterian church in Pennsylvania. In 1849 he was Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. He was the author of numerous works on archaeology and social statistics, travels, and sermons. Perhaps his correspondence with Archbishop Hughes on the doctrines and practices of Catholicism brought him most prominently before the public. He died at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, 4th February 1861, aged 58.

Sources

37a. Biographical Dictionary—American Biography: Francis S. Drake. Boston, 1876.

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An American widow’s account of her travels in Ireland in 1844–45 on the eve of the Great Famine:

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Mrs Nicholson’s recollections of her tour among the peasantry are still revealing and gripping today.

The author returned to Ireland in 1847–49 to help with famine relief and recorded those experiences in the rather harrowing: Annals of the Famine in Ireland.

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