Notes for Alexander MURRAY

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Notes for Alexander MURRAY

The family tree done by Harriet Thurtell about 1900 and the History of the Thurtell Family done by Susan Persia Thurtell about 1968, both in the possession of Susan Persia Thurtell Miller, show Alexander Thurtell married Annita and had no issue.

Information received from Peter Murray in 1997 shows Alexander Murray was born in 1834 in London, England, and died aged 36 of consumption on May 16, 1870, at San Miguel, San Luis Obispo County, California. He went to California in the spring of 1850 and settled in Sonora, Tuolumne County, where he joined the partnership publishing the Sonora Herald newspaper. He moved in November 1854 to San Luis Obispo where he lived the rest of his life. There he was Postmaster 1855-70, County Superintendent of Public Schools 1862-1866, and Deputy Collector of U.S. Internal Revenue for several years . He was also an agent for Wells, Fargo & Co. for six or seven years. He appears to have been extremely popular in his community, and his death is described as a public calamity. A brief biography appears in the "History of San Luis Obispo County" consulted in the public library there. There is no mention there of a wife or children, but the "Thurtell Pedigree" records that he married Annita ...., and had no issue. Interestingly, his funeral ceremonies were conducted by the Master Masons of the San Simeon Lodge, and brethren of the Masonic Fraternity, and the family tradition in California is that he owned a large estate at San Simeon that later became part of the Hearst estate.

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