DR. JAMES BRICKELL MURFREE. One of the most prominent
physicians of Middle Tennessee, who died at Murfreesboro Wednesday night, April
24th, 1912. Dr. Murfree was born in Murfreesboro Sept. 16, 1835. His father was
Mathias B. Murfree, a farmer and a son of Col. Hardy Murfree, for whom
Murfreesboro was named. Col. Hardy Murfree was a native of North Carolina and a
soldier in the Revolutionary War. Mary Ann (Roberts) Murfree, mother of Dr.
Murfree, was a native of North Carolina.
James B. Murfree was educated in Union University, at Murfreesboro,
from which institution he received the degree of A. M. He attended one course
of lectures in the medical department of the University of Nashville and went
to Philadelphia and entered the Jefferson Medical College. There he received
his degree as M. D., in March, 1859. He practiced in Murfreesboro until the
breaking out of the Civil War, in 1861, when he enlisted in Company I,
First Tennessee regiment, from which company he was detailed as medical officer
to care for the sick. He was appointed assistant surgeon by the State of
Tennessee. On June 9, [1861], he was commissioned assistant surgeon in the
Confederate Army, which position he continued to hold until July 6, 1862, when
he was appointed surgeon, and was retained in that position to the close of the
war.
After the war he returned to Murfreesboro, where he
practiced alone for two years, was in partnership with Dr. L. W. Knight during
1868, then associated with Dr. H. H. Clayton, from 1869 to 1878, and since then
had practiced alone. In 1898 he took a post-graduate course in general surgery
in the New York Polyclinic Institute. He was a member of the Rutherford County
Medical Society, ex-President of the Middle Tennessee Medical Association, ex-President
of the Tennessee Medical Society, and ex-President of the Tri-State Medical
Society, the last named embracing Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee; was a member
of the Southern Surgical Gynecological Association; a member of the American
Medical Association, a contributor to the medical journals, was professor of
surgery in the medical department of the University of the South, at Sewanee,
which position he held from 1895 until shortly before his last illness began.
He was local surgeon for the N. C. & St. L. Railway,
medical examiner for the New York, the Aetna, the Washington, the Mutual Life
of New York, and several other old line life insurance companies. He was a
member of the Democratic party. He was a member of and an elder in the
Presbyterian Church; belonged to Mt. Moriah Lodge of Masons, Pythagoras Chapter
No. 150, Murfreesboro Commandery No. 10, Knights Templar, thirty-second degree
Scottish Rite Consistory at Nashville.
He was married Jan. 14, 1862, to Ada Juliet Talley, of
Readyville, Tenn., who survives him with the following children: Hardy, Jane
Ready, wife of W. J. Nance; Ada Morrow, wife of C. B. Huggins; Fannie Hancock,
wife of T. V. Ordway; Libbie Morrow and Mary Robert Murfree and Dr. M. B.
Murfree.
In honor of his capable and faithful services for over half
a century in the town in which he was born, lived and died, all the business
houses closed their doors on the day of his burial. Universally loved and
esteemed by his family, the community in which he lived, and by the whole
medical profession in the State, he justly earned a most enviable reputation by
the faithful discharge of every duty.
SOURCE: Deering J. Roberts, Southern Practitioner, Volume 34, p. 253-5
