Governor Isaac Murphy

Murphy's road to Huntsville was not straight. Born near Pittsburgh in 1799, he was admitted to the bar in 1825, married in Tennessee, and by the Encyclopedia of Arkansas's account saw his wife's slaveholding father disown her over Murphy's opposition to slavery. He taught and surveyed at Fayetteville, lost his 120-acre farm to a called-in note, tried the California gold fields and settled in Huntsville in 1854. As governor he backed public schooling that was limited to whites. He died September 8, 1882, and is buried in the Huntsville cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Withrow Springs State Park — 4.7 mi
  A 54-degree spring that runs underground into War Eagle Cave and out to War Eagle Creek, on land Roscoe Hobbs gave the state in 1962, with float trips and an oak-hickory forest.
• Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area — 18 mi
  Arkansas's largest state park, about 12,000 acres on Beaver Lake, with the Van Winkle mill site, a graveyard of enslaved people, 54 miles of trail and regulated hunting.
• Whitaker Point (Hawksbill Crag) — 20 mi
  The one designated trail in the Upper Buffalo Wilderness leads to Hawksbill Crag, a bluff over the river's headwaters in a valley no one has lived in since 1948.
• Lost Valley Trail — 21 mi
  A box-canyon walk past a natural bridge, a 2,000-year-old bluff shelter and a 53-foot waterfall, the most popular hike in Buffalo National River.

More markers nearby

• Huntsville Massacre — steps away
• Madison County Government — steps away
• Van Winkle's Mill — 19 mi
• Berryville in the Civil War — 21 mi