Along busy Front Street in Sunbury stands a historical marker honoring Revolutionary War marksman Timothy Murphy, who served with Capt. John Lowdon’s company as part of Thompson’s Rifle Battalion. Murphy was born near the Delaware Water Gap in 1751. His parents were Irish immigrants who moved to Shamokin Flats, now Sunbury, when Timothy was about 8.
Not much is known about his formative years here in the Susquehanna River Valley, but he was one of 97 single men recruited who enlisted in Lowdon’s company on June 29, 1775. Lowdon’s roster lists Murphy as a private, and he earned a salary of “6 and two-thirds dollars” per month and had to provide his own arms and clothing.
Lowdon’s company left Fort Augusta on July 7, 1775, to serve in the Revolutionary War, where the soldiers saw action in the Siege of Boston and the Battle of Long Island as well as the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In July 1777, Murphy was one of 500 men hand-picked by Gen. Daniel Morgan to head for upstate New York to stop British Gen. John Burgoyne’s invasion near Saratoga.
Murphy’s outstanding sharpshooting skills surpassed his commander’s expectations during the Second Battle of Saratoga on Oct. 7, 1777. He shot British Brig. Gen. Simon Fraser and wounded him in the upper torso from a distance of 300 yards, which was quite a feat for the time. British soldiers carried Fraser from the field, and he died the next day. With a second shot, Murphy fatally wounded British Senior Officer Sir Francis Clerke, Burgoyne’s chief aide-de-camp, who was delivering a message on the field.
These two casualties greatly affected the morale of Burgoyne and his troops and led to his surrender.
Morgan’s riflemen wintered at Valley Forge that year and traveled to the Mohawk Valley of New York in 1778 to quell the Tory and Indian raids near Cherry Valley. In late 1779, Murphy’s term with Morgan’s riflemen expired, and he returned to Schoharie, N.Y., and joined Capt. Jacob Hager’s company of Col. Vrooman’s Albany County Militia, where he served during the attack of regulars, Tories and Indians and defeated Sir John Johnson, forcing his retreat northward into Canada.
In 1781, Murphy re-enlisted in the Continental Army and served under Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne, battling Lord Cornwallis across Virginia where with the help of George Washington, his main army, and the French, defeated Cornwallis at Yorktown.
After the war, Murphy returned to New York’s Schoharie Valley, married twice and had nine children with his first wife and four with his second wife. He never learned to read or write but was a successful farmer, miller and local politician. Murphy died in 1818, and the New York State Legislature voted to erect a monument to him in 1819. It was not placed at the Saratoga Battlefield by the state until 1929. Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was present at the dedication ceremony and commented, “This country has been made by Timothy Murphys, the men in the ranks. Conditions called for the qualities of the heart and head that Tim Murphy had in abundance. Our histories tell us more of the men in the ranks, for it was to them, more than to the generals, that we were indebted for our military victories.”
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Revolutionary War hero hailed from Sunbury
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