Timothy J. Murphy

The student of history familiar with the record of the race recognizes the fact that the sons of Ireland have ever been an active factor in our later and more progressive civilization. They are men of great adaptability as well as energy and are thus enabled to adjust themselves to new circumstances and to improve opportunities and utilize surroundings with which they have been familiar for but a comparatively brief period.

Possessing the salient characteristics of his Celtic ancestry, Timothy J. Murphy has made a creditable position in business circles in Denison, developing a profitable business as the head of the Denison Transfer Company. He was born in Ireland. March 19, i860, and in 1863 was brought to America by his parents. His father, Kyarn Murphy, was born in Ireland in the year 1838 and married Miss Julia Pendergrast, who was also born on the Emerald Isle. 

Crossing the Atlantic to America, they took up their abode in Clark County, Indiana, where the father followed farming until 1873, when he went to Parsons, Kansas. There he entered the employ of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company as foreman of a gang of workmen who were engaged on the construction of the round house there, and from April until August, 1873, he assisted in laying the tracks of the railroad to the Red River bridge at Denison, being foreman of a number of men thus employed.

Timothy J. Murphy came with his father as one of the employees, and when the road was extended to Denison, the town having been only recently surveyed, the father and son worked for the railroad company here until 1875. In that year, the father turned his attention to the teaming business, in which he continued until his death in 1886, when he was forty-eight years of age. His son up to this time had been in his employ and became his successor, developing a business which in extent and importance has become a leading industry of the city, conducted under the name of the Denison Transfer Company. The patronage is now very extensive, so that the annual income is large and gratifying. 

Mrs. Kyarn Murphy passed away in 1876, at the age of fifty-seven years, and of her four children only two are living, the younger being Simon F., who resides in Dallas, Texas, where he is extensively engaged in the real estate business. As before stated, the business record of Timothy J. Murphy was closely associated with his father's history until the time of the latter's death, and as his successor he has made a creditable name in business circles in Denison, having the trust and confidence of those who have had reason to employ his services

He was married in Cleveland, Ohio, September 29, 1893, to Miss Teresa Ward, who was born in Ohio but was reared in Denison, Texas. In politics a Democrat, he is much respected as a citizen and though interested in the political success of his party, he has never sought or desired office for himself. His genuine worth has commanded trust and confidence and his business career, marked by steady advancement, has won for him the admiration of his fellow men. He is an example of the boys who secure their own start in life—determined, self-reliant boys, willing to work for advantages which others secure through inheritance, destined by sheer force of character to succeed in the face of all opposition and to push through the front in one important branch of enterprise or another. As a man his business ability has been constantly displayed, and today he is enjoying the success which is the merited reward of earnest, persistent labor.

[Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, pp. 614-615.]

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