Patrick Murphy

A Local Treasure: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy may not be as well known as many would have him be, for the effort and time that he put into building and truly establishing the township that we all know now, lovingly, as Joplin, a town that is almost impossible to break down and eager to bring itself to new glory every step of the way; from rebuilding after Tornados to establishing new safe spaces for adults and children alike to spend their time, those from Joplin are a force to be reckoned with and one of the founders himself began the truth of this.

Patrick Murphy was not born in Joplin, or anywhere near Missouri at all and was from a very poor family in Ireland in January of 1839, there are different stories about whether Murphy was sent entirely on his own to America when he was a child or whether he and his entire family immigrated as a unit to the American East Coast in the 1840s as a result of the famine and troubles Ireland was going through at the time. Either way, Patrick himself went West as soon as he was able to so that he would have a great shot at this American Dream his parents had wanted for him and the ambition and drive that a poor Irish lad had for a future of his own making, by 1859 he was out in Colorado, as to what he was doing in Colorado, the sources vary. Patrick was either searching for gold himself or alternatively, he was mining for silver, either way, he was able to earn enough to purchase himself some means of business via a mule transport and began his own freight business.

Patrick was not yet 30 years old by the time he had earned his first fortune that came from his freight transport as he traveled back and forth from Wyoming to Utah and even back into Kansas where his business had begun. This was all during the 1860s and while Murphy’s location and movements cannot be entirely tracked throughout the Civil War, it is either that he avoided the draft by being out West and contributing in some vague way with transport or his business in some manner or that perhaps he went home to Ireland for a respite during the thick of it. Murphy has no known military service record and as a questionably sourced immigrant status is at hand as well, his citizenship could have been in question and he was never drafted or noticed as absent for a number of reasons. Whatever happened, Murphy never served during the American Civil War and never spoke of this specific time range in any publicly found way either. By 1866 however, he had made quite a fortune with his freight business (lending some credibility to the concept that he was stateside during the war and simply avoiding the fight) and could tell that the newer age of trains and faster transport was upon him and sold his freight team before he lost out and settled in Fort Scott, Kansas to operate a store for a few short months before relocating to open a new dry goods/general store with his friend and business partner W.P. Davis in Carthage, Missouri.

Carthage is where the story of Patrick Murphy as is the most important aspect to the foundation of Joplin Missouri begins, Murphy met his wife here in Carthage and they were wed