William Green Murphy (1836-1904) was one of the earliest European-American settlers in Marysville and a younger brother of Mary Murphy Covillaud, for whom Marysville was named.
Born in Tennessee, William was the sixth of seven children born to Mormon converts Jeremiah Burns Murphy and Levinah W. Jackson Murphy. He was ten years old when he traveled to California with his widowed mother and all his siblings, as well as the husbands and children of his two oldest sisters, as part of the Donner Party. At the end of October 1846, the party became trapped in the snowy mountains at what is now known as Donner Lake and began running out of food.
On December 16, 1846, William joined sixteen of the strongest members of the party—including his sisters Sarah and Harriet and his brother Lemuel (aged 20, 18, and 13, respectively)—on a snowshoe expedition to find help. He had no snowshoes himself, however, and as the youngest member of the party, he found it impossible to keep up with the others. He returned to Donner Lake the next day with an adult, "Dutch Charley" Burger, who also had no snowshoes; neither of them had been able to keep up with the snowshoe party. Burger made another attempt at setting out on his own on December 20, but returned to Donner Lake the same day and died of starvation on or about December 29.
If William hadn't turned back with "Dutch Charley" Burger, he would almost certainly have died. His brother Lemuel (who continued with the snowshoe expedition) died on or about December 27. After the snowshoe expedition departed, William's 17-year-old brother Landrum was the oldest male in the Murphy family who remained behind. Because of this, Landrum took over most of the wood-chopping and snow-shoveling duties for the Murphy family at that point. Landrum died of starvation January 31, 1847. William and the other survivors remaining at Donner Lake—including his mother, his 15-year-old sister Mary, and his 8-year-old brother Simon—were reduced to eating moccasins and old animal hides. The First Relief rescue team arrived February 19, 1847. One of the members of this rescue team, Daniel Rhoads, later described the team's arrival:
| At sunset of the 16th day we crossed the Truckee Lake on the ice and came to the spot where we had been told we should find the emigrants. We looked all around but no living thing except ourselves was in sight and we thought that all must have perished. We raised a loud halloo and then we saw a woman emerge from a hole in the snow. As we approached her several others made their appearance in like manner, coming out of the snow. They were gaunt with famine and I never can forget the horrible, ghastly sight they presented. The first woman spoke in a hollow voice very much agitated and said "are you men from California or do you come from heaven?" |
| They had been without food except a few work oxen since the first fall of snow, about 3 weeks. They had gathered up the bones of the slaughtered cattle and boiled them to extract the grease and had roasted some of the hides which formed the roofs of their cabins. We gave them food very sparingly and retired for the night, having some one on guard until morning to keep close watch on our provisions to prevent the starving emigrants from eating them, which they would have done until they died of repletion. |
| When these emigrants had first been stopped by snow they had built small cabins using the skins of the slaughtered oxen for roofs. Storms nearly continuous had caused the snow to fall to the depth of 18 feet so that the tops of their cabins were far beneath the surface. When we arrived they were eating portions of the hides forming their roofs which hides being under the snow were in a putrid condition. The bodies of those who had perished were lying on top of the snow covered with quilts. When a person died an inclined plane was dug to the floor of the cabin and the body slid up to the surface, the inmates being too weak to lift the corpse out. So far the survivors had not been compelled to partake of human flesh. I remember seeing but 3 living men. Louis Keeseburg was lying on his back unable to rise. He, Patrick Breen and one other were the only ones left. Very few women or children had died up to this time. |
| The morning after our arrival John P. Rhoads and Tucker started for another camp distant 8 miles East, where were the Donner family, to distribute what provisions could be shared and to bring along such of the party as had sufficient strength to walk. They returned bringing four girls and two boys of the Donner family and some others. |
| The next morning we started on our return trip accompanied by 21 emigrants mostly women and children. John Rhoads carried a child in his arms which died the second night. On the third day an emigrant named John Denton, exhausted by starvation and totally snow-blind gave out. He tried to keep up a hopeful and cheerful appearance, but we knew he could not live much longer. We made a platform of saplings, built a fire on it, cut some boughs for him to sit upon and left him. This was imperatively necessary. The party who followed in our trail from California found his dead body a few days after we had left him, partially eaten by wolves. |
John Rhoads of the First Relief team actually carried two children on his back—the child who died, whose name was Ada Keseburg, and William's 3-year-old niece, Naomi Pike. Naomi survived the trip. William and his older sister Mary were also rescued by the First Relief team, but their mother and their younger brother Simon were too sick to travel, as was their 2-year-old nephew, George Foster. William's feet became so badly frostbitten during the walk that the First Relief team nearly had to leave him behind as they had left John Denton. But since his only choices were to keep walking or die, William managed to keep walking.
Simon was rescued by the Third Relief team in mid-March, when he was celebrating his ninth birthday. George had already died and was eaten shortly before the Third Relief team arrived. William's mother was still too weak to travel, and died soon after the Third Relief team left without her. Her body was also eaten by the few remaining survivors.
In 1849, William's sister Mary wrote to their relatives, "William and Simon are large helthy boys and as like the other boyes was William can ride wild horses like a spaniard they can talk spanish and indian to[o]." William had at that time been acting as an Indian interpreter at Bidwell's Bar for the past year, beginning when he was 12 years old. Later that year, William's sister Harriet and her husband Michael C. Nye took him and Simon to Dresden, Tennessee via the Isthmus of Panama. The Nyes left William and Simon in the care of another family in Dresden while they returned to Marysville. In Dresden, William was privately tutored until he entered the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1852. In 1854 he took a break from his schooling to spend a few years in Marysville, but he returned to Missouri in time to graduate in 1861. Later that same year, he married Damaris Kathleen Cochran.
Although his brother Simon remained in Tennessee for the rest of his life and served there in the Civil War, William returned to Marysville with his new bride. He was admitted to the state bar of California in January 1863 and to the state bar of Nevada in August 1863. He practiced law in Virginia City, Nevada until 1866, when he moved back to Marysville and established a successful law practice here. He served as court commissioner for 27 years and also served as the Yuba County district attorney. He was a respected orator, a vocal prohibitionist (though he didn't live to see Prohibition put into effect), and a founder of the First Christian Church of Marysville. He and his wife had seven children: Tullulah "Lulie" T. Murphy, Kate Nye Murphy, William Green Murphy, Jr., Charles Mitchell Murphy, Ernest H. Murphy, Harriet F. Murphy, and Leander B. Murphy. He died in Marysville in 1904.
Links
New Light on the Donner Party: The Murphy Family by Kristin Johnson History of Yuba County, California (Chapter 6) by Thompson & West, 1879 Donner Party Donner Party timeline
