The Murphree family patriarch: a Revolutionary War soldier, born around 1757, died 1854. Had sixteen children across two marriages. His son Daniel Murphree came to Blount County in 1817 and Solomon followed by 1820, settling the valley that carries the family name.
Related: Murphree’s Valley - named for the family; the sources disagree over whether for Solomon or for his son Daniel, and both accounts are set out there.
Notable descendants:
- Daniel “Log Cabin” Murphree (1781-1851) - his son, who came to Blount County in 1817 and cleared both his father’s homestead and his own. George Powell’s 1855 history credits him with giving the valley its name; the family’s own tradition credits Solomon.
- Rebecca Elizabeth Murphree Bynum (1779-1843), Mary Murphree Easley (1784-1857), Rhoda Murphree Bynum (1788-1874), Sarah Murphree McKey Forsythe (1796-1871), Nancy Murphree Ellis (1798-1857), Nancy Ann “Annie” Murphree Burdin (1824-1919), and Solomon Murphree Jr. (1825-1893) - seven more of his children, confirmed via Find a Grave.
- Solomon Murphree (1803-1882), Jesse Murphree (1806-1869), James S. Murphree (1808-1879), Barzilia Murphree (b. 1811), Caleb Murphree (1812-1858), and William Bynum Murphree (1820-1892) - Daniel “Log Cabin” Murphree’s own children, Solomon Sr.’s grandsons.
- The remaining children, named from a different and arguably better source. This entry has said he had sixteen children across two marriages, but only eight were named here - those confirmed via Find a Grave. The other eight are named in Robert W. Baird’s “Children of Solomon Murphree” (genfiles.com), which works from Daniel Murphree’s own family Bible - the Bible naming his full siblings, held in Oneonta as of 1979-80 - together with Blount County court and estate records, the 1810-1850 censuses, and Mt. Moriah church records: Edith Murphree (1786-1859), who married Daniel Stephens; Miriam Kessiah Murphree (1789-1831), who married Warham Easley; Hannah Murphree (1791-1852), who married Jesse Ellis; Elizabeth Murphree (1793 - c.1800), died in childhood; Keziah Mary Murphree (1799/1800 - c.1840), who married Cummings Hallmark; an unnamed son who died in childhood, inferred from the 1810 census; Dicy Murphree (c.1826-1838), died in childhood; and Emily Murphree (c.1829), who married James Heaton. That completes the sixteen.
- Where the two sources disagree, both readings are given rather than one silently chosen. Find a Grave / the Bible-based list: Mary Easley born 1784 / 12 Oct 1783; Rhoda Bynum died 1874 / 1875-79; Nancy Ellis born 1798 / c.1801; Sarah McKey Forsythe died 1871 / “after 1857”; and “Nancy Ann ‘Annie’ Murphree Burdin (1824-1919)” appears in the Bible list as Anna Murphree (c.1827), who married Wesley B. Burden - very likely the same woman, spelled differently, with a three-year gap in the birth year.
A documented marriage into the family behind Blount County’s covered bridges. His great-granddaughter Mary Jane Murphree (1849-1947) - daughter of William Bynum Murphree (1820-1892), listed above as one of Daniel “Log Cabin” Murphree’s own children - married Rev. Francis Tidwell (1850-1909), a great-uncle of Zelma Clyde Tidwell, the man who built or helped build nearly every covered bridge in the county. A second marriage runs the other way in the same generation: Eliza Jane Tidwell (1866-1906), of the same Tidwell family, married a Murphree. Both are stated on the relevant memorials, not inferred from the shared surname.
Who the valley is named for is genuinely contested, and the sources split by date. The earliest account is George Powell’s History of Blount County of 1855, written within four years of Daniel’s death: “Dan’l. Murphree gave his name to this valley.” Against that, the Murphree family’s own tradition names Solomon - stated by his great-grandson Jasper E. Bynum in 1916, and again in the Solomon Murphree family Bible as transcribed in 1948, which says plainly that “Murphree’s Valley is named for him.” Genealogist Robert W. Baird, the most thorough modern researcher of this family, declines to settle it, writing only that the valley “is said to have been named for Solomon.” This site records both rather than choosing.