Every day we Annapolitans walk, drive by, work and play on hundreds of years of Western history. Our city is an old, old city and one that has played an important role in the life of our nation even before it was conceived. But how many of us know more about our rich heritage other than a few well-worn anecdotes? This Place Through Time is The Sound’s new weekly feature that tells the story of our ancient city through the words and pictures of Annapolis’ own historians, one chapter at a time.
Murray House: Home of James Murray, Revolutionary War Doctor
Merchant Thomas Rutland was one ofAnnapolis’s earliest property developers. In the early 1760s, he built the house at207 Hanover Streetnow known as the Peggy Stewart House for its connection to the 1774 burning of the ship by that name by its owner, Anthony Stewart, who was then living in the house. About the same time, Rutland also built the original portion of the house at 9 Maryland Avenue known as the Tilton House, with its unusual four-bay quasi-Georgian plan. Two decades later, in the early 1780s, Rutland built the house at140 Prince George Street.
In 1785, Dr. James Murray bought this last house from the financially-pressed Rutland. The son of Dr. William Murray and his wife, Ann Smith, James was born in Chestertown in 1739. He attended the College of Philadelphia (in the same class as William Paca) and received his medical training at theUniversityofEdinburgh, as did a number of colonial physicians. Murrayreturned from Britain in 1769 to practice medicine inAnnapolisand sometime after 1772 married Sarah Ennalls Maynadier, widow of John Rider Nevett.
During the Revolutionary War, Dr. Richard Tootell established a military hospital on the grounds of the State House in the building used by King William’s School. When the school building burned in 1777, the hospital moved for a time to a rented house and then c. 1780 to the county’s poorhouse (located near theNationalCemeteryat Taylor and West). This was the facility where James Murray treated the sick and wounded when he took over after Tootell’s death in 1780.
Glimpses of Murray’s medical practice in the 1790s come from the diary of silversmith William Faris. Murrayremoved a growth from the tongue of Faris’s son Charles in 1792, paid house calls to treat the family, and prescribed remedies considered appropriate at the time but dubious at best today. In 1799, Dr. Murray was one of the founders of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland; another Annapolitan, Dr. Upton Scott, was its first president.
The 1798 Federal Direct Tax assessment describedMurray’s property as including, in addition to the dwelling house, a one-story brick kitchen, a 16’ square brick medical shop, and a brick smokehouse. In this home theMurraysraised a family of three sons and three daughters. Their son, James Henry Murray, served as a U. S. Senator from 1847 to 1861. The three daughters married well: Anna Maria to General John Mason, son of George Mason ofGunston Hall,Virginia; Sally Scott to Edward Lloyd V, governor ofMarylandfrom 1809 to 1811 and later a U.S. Senator; and Catherine to Richard Rush, son of Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Dr. James Murray died in 1819, his wife Sarah Murray in 1837.
About the author:
Jean Russo is a native New Yorker who has lived in Maryland for many years. She has a Ph.D. in colonial history from The Johns Hopkins University, works part time for the Maryland State Archives and Historic Annapolis Foundation, and does volunteer and freelance work for most of the historical entities in town and in the Four Rivers Heritage Area. She is co-editor of Colonial Chesapeake Society and The Diary of William Faris . . . An Annapolis Silversmith. Ms. Russo is a founding member of the Annapolis History Consortium.
The Annapolis History Consortium is an informal organization of professional and amateur historians who meet about ten times a year to discuss issues, places, and events pertaining to area history. The more than one hundred members of the Consortium’s online group discuss issues and answer questions online.
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