Hugh M. Murdock
On another page in this volume, in a personal sketch relating to Silas M. Murdock, brother of the subject of this sketch, there is set out at considerable length something of the history and the genealogy of the Murdock family in this county and of the coming to Ohio in 1835 of Robert Murdock and his wife, who settled in Clinton county and later came up into Greene county and established their home in Cedarville township. Robert Murdock was born in County Antrim, Ireland, son of John Murdock and wife, who were the parents of eight children, all of whom came to the United States save two. As a young man Robert Murdock came to this country and located in Philadelphia, where in 1835 he married Elizabeth Richards, who had come to this country the year previous with her parents from Ireland, she also having been born in County Antrim. After their marriage Robert Murdock and his wife came to Ohio and settled in Wayne township, Clinton county, where he bought a tract of two hundred and forty acres of land and where he made his home until 1857. He then sold out and moved into Greene county, buying a tract of one hundred and seventeen acres south of Cedarville, where he lived until his retirement from the farm and removal to Cedarville, where he spent his last days, his death occurring there in 1876, he then being past seventy-five years of age. His widow survived him for nearly twenty years, her death occurring in January, 1895, she then being eighty-two years of age. Robert Murdock and his wife were members of the Reformed Presbyterian church and their children were reared in that faith. There were six of these children, of whom the subject of this sketch was the fifth in order of birth, the others being as follows: John, now deceased, who was for years the owner of the old Judge Kyle homestead farm south of Cedarville, now owned by Silas M. Murdock; the Rev. David Murdock, a minister of the Reformed Presbyterian church, now living retired at Howard Lake, Minnesota; Mary Murdock, of Cedarville: Martha, now deceased, who was the wife of James McMillan, of Cedarville township, and Silas M., who is referred to above.
Hugh M. Murdock was born on a farm in the vicinity of Centerville, in Clinton county, this state, January 17, 1846, and was eleven years of age when his parents moved with their family up into Greene county and located in Cedarville township, his schooling thus having been completed in the schools of this county. From the days of his boyhood he has taken a great interest in the raising of sheep and when he reached his majority he left home and went to Champaign county, Illinois, where for two years he was engaged in herding sheep on the open prairie. With the money thus earned he returned to Ohio and in Crawford county invested in a flock of sheep which he drove through to Arkansas, the trip requiring five months. He was there engaged for more than two years in pasturing this flock, hopeful of profitable returns on the venture, but a series of "hard luck" circumstances intervened and at the end of that time he returned to Cedarville without having realized his expectations. He still, however, pinned his faith to sheep and kept at the business, buying flocks successively in Madison, Delaware and Marion counties, renting pasture lands, feeding and disposing of his products with varying degrees of success, and was thus engaged, traveling about, boarding, hiring pasture and buying feed for the flock, for nineteen years, in several different states. In 1902 Mr. Murdock returned to Greene county and bought a tract of ninety-three acres two miles north of Cedarville, in the township of that name, built a house on the same, and has since made his home there, now living practically retired, though still keeping a flock of two hundred or more sheep and expecting to start his son in the sheep business on a somewhat more adequate scale presently. Reared a Republican, he later became a Democrat and is now a Prohibitionist.
On April 27, 1887, Hugh M. Murdock was united in marriage to Margaret Starr, who was born in Ritchie county. West Virginia, daughter of James and Hannah Eliza (Ayers) Starr, both of whom spent all their lives in that state, and to this union two children have been born, a son and a daughter, James Howard and Mabel Ruth, both of whom are at home. Mr. Murdock is now planning to engage in the sheep business on a larger scale in the southern part of Mississippi, Alabama or Georgia in the near future, and if he settles in either Mississippi or Georgia it will make the seventh state in which he has lived and raised sheep.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918