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Mary Lindley Murray is known in American Revolutionary folklore as the Quaker woman who held up British General William Howe after the British victory against American forces at Kips Bay. According to legend, Murray treated Howe and his generals to cake and wine and delayed them several hours as the American rebels got away safely and undetected.
Though legend portrays her as tempting the British with her charms, David McCullough notes in his book 1776 that "she may have been extremely charming, but she was also a woman in her fifties and the mother of twelve children."
MARY MURRAY
The important service rendered to the American cause by Mrs. Murray, who saved Gen. Putnam and his troops from a surprise by the British, has been mentioned.* One of her descendants has communicated a few additional particulars concerning her. Her maiden name was Mary Lindley, and she was of a Quaker family. She was born in Pennsylvania, and resided in that colony for some years after her marriage to Robert Murray. Her eldest son, Lindley—so extensively known for his work on the grammar of the English language—was born at the town of Snetara, near Lancaster. In 1753 she removed with her family to the city of New York, where Murray became ere long one of the wealthiest and most respected merchants. He had joined the society of Friends from a persuasion of the truth of their creed and approbation of their customs, and though he was one of the four or five gentlemen who first rode in their coaches, he had a dislike to everything like luxury or ostentation, always terming his carriage his ' leather convenience.' Mrs. Murray is remembered in the family tradition as * See Vol. II., p. 294.
a person of great dignity and stateliness of deportment. Her disposition is described by a tribute to her memory in the memoirs of her son, Lindley Murray : " My mother was a woman of amiable disposition, and remarkable for mildness, humanity and liberality of sentiment. She was indeed a faithful and affectionate wife, a tender mother, and a kind mistress. I recollect with emotions of affection and gratitude her unwearied solicitude for my health and happiness."
About the year 1764 Mr. Murray removed his family to England and remained there, on account of his health, till 1775. He was descended of a noble Scottish family, whose younger branches, like many other scions of nobility, had found themselves obliged, in impoverished and troublous times, to seek their fortune in the new world. It was natural, therefore, that he should retain their prejudices, and he continued disposed to loyalism during his life, while his wife, as the anecdote recorded of her testifies, joined with all her sympathies in the contest for liberty in her native land. The scene of her detention of the British officers was ' The Grange,' a small country seat at Murray Hill, some time since removed to make way for the improvements of the growing city.
Mrs. Murray died December 25, 1782, (0. S.) Many of her descendants are now living in New York : those of her son, John Murray, and her daughters, Beulah— Mrs. Martin Hoffman—and Susannah—the wife of a British officer—Col. Gilbert Colden Willett, a grandson of the English Lieutenant-Governor Colden.
- The Women of the American Revolution, Volume III, Elizabeth Fries Ellet, Baker and Scribner, 1850, page 376
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Lindley Murray
Lindley Murray (27 March 1745 – 16 March 1826), was an American Quaker who moved to England and became a writer and grammarian.
Life
He was born at Harper Tavern, Pennsylvania, on 27 March 1745. His father, Robert Murray, a member of an old Quaker family, was one of the leading New York merchants. Murray was the eldest of twelve children, all of whom he survived, although, he was puny and delicate in childhood. When six years old, he was sent to school in Philadelphia, but soon left to accompany his parents to North Carolina, where they lived until 1753. They then moved to New York, where Murray was sent to a good school, but proved a 'heedless boy'. Contrary to his inclinations, he was placed when only fourteen in his father's counting-house. In spite of endeavors to foster in him the commercial spirit, the lad's interests were mainly concentrated in science and literature. Collecting his books, he escaped to Burlington, New Jersey, entered a boarding-school, and commenced to study French. His retreat was discovered, he was brought back to New York, and allowed a private tutor. His father still desired him to apply himself to commerce, but he stated arguments in favor of a literary profession so ably in writing that his father's lawyer advised him to let the lad study law.
Robert Lindley Murray
Robert Lindley Murray (November 3, 1893 – January 17, 1970) was an award-winning chemist and an American male tennis player.
Biography
Robert Lindley Murray was born in San Francisco, California, USA to Augustus Taber Murray and Nellie Howland Gifford. He graduated from Stanford in 1913 with a degree in chemistry and received a chemical engineering masters degree the following year. Murray played for the varsity team and became the 1913 Pacific Coast intercollegiate champion.
In June 1914 Murray won the New York Metropolitan title defeating Fred Alexander in the final in five hard-fought sets and in August he won the coveted Meadow Club Cup, at Southampton, NY, beating Watson Washburn in the final in three straight sets.
Murray won his first national tennis title in February 1916 when he became the singles champion at the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships, played at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York. In the final he defeated Alrick Man in three sets 6–2, 6–2, 9–7.
