Timothy Murphy – Most Famous Marksman American Revolution

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This article on Timothy Murphy incorporates text from the New York State Military Museum.
Timothy Murphy – Most Famous Marksman of the Revolution 1751-1818
Timothy enlisted in the Pennsylvania forces and like many of the legendary crack shots who carried the famous long rifle, he joined Daniel Morgan’s rifle corps. Since he was perhaps the best shot in the army, officers selected Timothy Murphy to pick off key British officers who were reforming an attack at the Battle of Saratoga in the fall of 1777. Murphy made the shots and helped the army to victory in what is often called the turning point of the Revolution.
At the Battle of Bemis Heights (Second Battle of Saratoga), 7 October 1777, Murphy is reputed to have shot and killed Sir Francis Clerke and General Simon Fraser. Murphy's life is the subject of John Brick's 1953 novel, The Rifleman.
Little is known of Timothy Murphy's early life. Born in 1751 near the Delaware Water Gap to parents who had only recently immigrated from County Donegal, Ireland, when he was eight his family moved to Shamokin Flats (now Sunbury) in Pennsylvania. Some years after that he was apprenticed to the Van Campen family, and with them relocated to the Wyoming Valley frontier.

On 29 June 1775, Timothy and his brother John Murphy enlisted in Captain John Lowdon's Company of Northumberland County Riflemen, and subsequently served in the Siege of Boston, the Battle of Long Island, and skirmishing in Westchester. Later, he became a Sergeant in the 12th Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Army and served at Trenton, Princeton, and New Brunswick. An expert marksman (able to hit a seven inch target at 250 yards), Murphy qualified for Morgan's Rifle Corps, and was transferred to that elite organization in July 1777, shortly after its inception. In August of the same year, Murphy was one of 500 hand-picked riflemen sent north to reinforce the Continental forces opposing General Sir John Burgoyne's invasion of Northern New York.
It was at the Battle of Bemis Heights (Second Battle of Saratoga), 7 October 1777, that Murphy is reputed to have fired the shots that killed Sir Francis Clerke and General Simon Fraser, throwing the British command of the battle into disarray.
Returning to the main army, Murphy suffered through Valley Forge and was involved in harassing the British withdrawal from Philadelphia before General Washington again ordered the northern dispatch of three companies of riflemen in July 1778, in response to attacks on the New York frontier.
When the British raided the Schoharie Valley, Murphy ‘s fame among his neighbors reached its zenith at the defense of the Middle Fort. Murphys wife Peggy was with him, molding bullets, loading muskets, and swearing to take up a spear when the ammunition ran out.
Early in 1781, Murphy reenlisted in the Pennsylvania Line under General Wayne and was present for the final Battle of Yorktown. He returned to Fultonham in the Schoharie at the war's end.
By his first wife, Murphy had five sons and four daughters. Several years after Peggy died in 1807, he married Mary Robertson, and with her relocated to Charlottesville and there by her had four more sons. Murphy never learned to read or write, nor applied for a veteran's grant or pension, but nonetheless was able to acquire a number of farms and a grist mill, and become a local political power. Later, he returned to Fultonham, where he died in 1818, at age 67, of cancer.
Murphy was buried there next to his first wife. In 1872, he was reinterred at Middleburgh cemetery. Although the State Legislature voted to erect a monument to Murphy in 1819, none was built until some of his descendants purchased one to be placed in the cemetery in 1910. In 1913, the Ancient Order of Hibernians placed a marker commemorating Murphy at the Saratoga Battlefield, and the state put up its own marker there in 1929. In dedicating that monument, Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt said:
“ This country has been made by Timothy Murphys, the men in the ranks. Conditions here called for the qualities of the heart and head that Tim Murphy had in abundance. Our histories should tell us more of the men in the ranks, for it was to them, more than to the generals, that we were indebted for our military victories. ”

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