Murray

Walter Thurtell Murray was born on December 9th, 1826 in Gloucestershire, England, son to James Thurtell Murray and Sarah Holt. By the age of 17 Walter had arrived in Boston where he learned the trade of printing and soon headed off to New York where he enlisted in August 1846 as a volunteer in the Stevenson Regiment near the end of the Mexican-American War.

While short in stature, Mr. Murray was anything but short on investing his talents and enthusiasm into whatever conditions required it.

Murray arrived in California on October 21st, 1847 after sailing around the horn of South America. After a couple skirmishes in La Paz, Mexico, the war was soon over and Murray's regiment disbanded. This was around the same time gold was discovered in the hills outside of Sacramento and Walter made his way there. While there, he met Romualdo Pacheco, a resident of San Luis Obispo, who would later become the 12th governor of California.

On October 23rd, 1854 Walter married Mercedes Espinosa of Chile in Sonora, California and moved to San Luis Obispo.

 

In 1859, a deed was recorded transferring title of this property to Walter Murray. The land was sold to Murray by John Wilson, husband to Ramona Wilson and stepfather to Romualdo Pacheco, Jr. This property is the adobe that currently resided in the Plaza at Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, though only a portion of the original structure still exists.

1859 also found Walter selected as the county treasurer.

The image below is the recording of the 1860 federal census. Note that at that time Mr. Murray's occupation was listed as lawyer.

Mr. Murray as appointed District Attorney in 1867.

Walter also had his hand as a newspaper editor, starting the Tribune in 1869 from the same location as his residence.

Here's an image of the adobe he lived in located near the Mission.

In June 7th, 1870 Walter was appointed postmaster general for the city of San Luis Obispo.

Mr. Murray was also trying his hand as a land owner, and in 1873 acquired 124 acres in Township 31 South and Range 13 East.

Here's the map.

And here's a copy of that deed.

In December1873, Walter was appointed by Gov. Newton Booth as the district judge of the First Judicial District (Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties), filling the vacancy on the death of Pablo de la Guerra.

Unfortunately, Mr. Murray has several attacks of what was termed gastritis, and while conducting business at the office of Judge Veneble and was struck with a violent chill and taken to the nearby Cosmopolitan Hotel where he died on October 5th, 1875 at the age of 48.

Walter Murray is buried in section D of the San Luis Obispo cemetery, also known as IOOF Cemetery, Lady Family Cemetery, Lady Sutcliffe Cemetery, Lawn Memorial Cemetery, Odd Fellows Cemetery, Sutcliffe Lawn Cemetery.

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A side note from the editor of this blog: I use to live on Murray Ave, and one time I was browsing Google maps looking for satellite images of my apartment when I noticed that Google listed the street as "Ave", and yet the street sign listed it as "St". I took this information to city hall public works department. They added a "Ave" sticker over the "ST." within days. Amazing.