CHAPTER TWO
 THE MURPHREE ANCESTRY
 "True worth is in being, not seeming,
 In doing, each day that goes by,
 Some little good-not in dreaming
 Of great things to do by and by.
 For whatever men say in their blindness,
 And spite of the fancies of youth,
 There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
 And nothing so royal as truth."
 -ALICE CAY.
 HE 'Murphree family springs from that noble stock
 which has played such a part in the founding of
 our nation and her development since colonial
 days, the Irish. The name of Murphree was an
adaptation of the old Irish name, Murphy, by which so many
Irish-Americans are identified today. The reason for the
change in the spelling of the last syllable cannot be determined
definitely. It seems to have come about, however, before the
Revolutionary War days.
 At any rate the Murphree family is first found in this
country in South Carolina. They were of the rugged and
pioneering nature--the same type of fearless, hard-working
settlers as those from which Andrew Jackson sprang.
 Albert Alexander Murphree's grandfather, Ellis Mur-
phree, was born June 15, 1802, in Pickens County, South
Carolina. The records show that on June 2, 1825, he was
married in his home county where he remained until Novem-
ber 27, 1834. His bride was Jenny Allgood, likewise a prod-
uct of those early pioneering days. She was born in Spar-
tanburg, South Carolina, May 22, 1805. When they were
married she was twenty and her husband twenty-three. Jen-
ny's father, the records show, was born May 2, 1779, and
died July 17, 1861. His wife, Frances, Jenny Allgood's
mother, was born March 23, 1783. This couple, great-grand-
parents of Albert Alexander Murphree, were married in 1801.
They reared the typically large family of the day, bringing
into the world twelve children.
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