This marker is located along the main street of downtown Murfreesboro and points out the biography and home of a local.
The marker reads, "Home of William Hardy Murfree, member of U.S. Congress, 1813-1817; North Carolina House, 1805 & 1812; presidential elector, 1812. House stands 1 block North." It is marker number A-20 and it was erected in 1971 by the North Carolina State Department of Archives and History.
Murfree was born in Murfreesboro on October 2, 1781, educated at the University of North Carolina, and trained in law before opening a practice in his hometown. He entered politics in 1805, served in the state House of Commons, acted as a Democratic elector in 1813, and later represented North Carolina in Congress, where his proposals for internal improvements failed to gain traction. Discouraged, he moved to Tennessee in 1820 and settled on his father's Revolutionary War lands, living only a few more years before his death in 1826. His early home, a two‑story Greek Revival brick house known as 'Melrose,' was sold in 1813 to Brigadier General Joseph Dickinson, who expanded it before his own death in 1822.
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