Place:Murphy, Cherokee, North Carolina, United States

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Murphy is a town in and the county seat of Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States. It is situated at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Valley rivers. It is the westernmost county seat in the state of North Carolina, approximately from the state capital in Raleigh. The population of Murphy was 1,627 at the 2010 census.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

This area had long been part of the homelands of the Cherokee people. They knew this site along the Hiwassee River as Tlanusi-yi (the Leech Place). They had a legend about a giant leech named Tlanusi, that lived in the river here. The Trading Path (later called the "Unicoi Turnpike") passed by the future site of Murphy, connecting the Cherokee lands east of the mountains with what were known to European colonists as the "Overhill Towns" of Tennessee.

After European Americans began to settle here, they named the site "Hunnington/ Huntington" after A.R.S. Hunter. He established the first trading post prior to 1828, where he would trade with the Cherokee, early European-American settlers, and U.S. Army soldiers on expeditions, or stationed at nearby Fort Butler. He was also appointed as the settlement's first postmaster, erecting the first Post Office.

European Americans later renamed the settlement as Murphy for North Carolina politician Archibald Murphey. He was influential in educational advances for the people of North Carolina in the early 19th century. The original spelling of the town was to be "Murphey" but the "e" was lost, or dropped at some point in history.^[1]

In 1836, during the Cherokee removal known as the Trail of Tears, the United States army built Fort Butler in what is today Murphy. Fort Butler was used as the main collection point by the government for Cherokee east of the mountains. From Fort Butler, the Cherokee were taken over the mountains on the Unicoi Turnpike to the main internment camps at Fort Cass (today Charleston, Tennessee), prior to their forcible removal to territory west of the Mississippi River, in what became known as Indian Territory (today's Oklahoma).

Today, the Unicoi Turnpike is known as the Joe Brown Highway. There are no visible remains of Fort Butler, but the site can be visited and historical markers provide facts and interpretation about its history. In addition, the Cherokee County Historical Museum, located in Murphy, provides information about the Trail of Tears.

Cherokee County was formed in 1839 from a portion of Macon County, but Murphy was not incorporated as the county seat until 1851.

Murphy was once the terminus of two train lines. The Mineral Bluff, Georgia spur line (L&N Railroad) came from North Georgia, and the Murphy Branch (Southern Railroad) came from Asheville. The L&N line was removed in the mid-1980s. The tracks for the Murphy Branch remain but are inoperable. This line has been idle since the mid-1990s, when the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad discontinued service between Murphy and Andrews. The L&N Depot, located southwest of downtown Murphy, is used as a community center.

Murphy was the home of the once well-known crafts manufacturer Margaret Studios. This company operated a nationwide chain of gift stores for its woodcraft products and housewares, such as lazy Susans and gift trays.

Folklorist John Jacob Niles based his well-known Christmas song, "I Wonder as I Wander", on a phrase he heard on July 16, 1933, in a song sung by a daughter of traveling evangelists in downtown Murphy.

Architect James Baldwin designed the Cherokee County Courthouse, located in downtown Murphy, in a Beaux-Arts style. Built in 1927, it is faced with locally sourced blue marble. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the Robert Lafayette Cooper House and Harshaw Chapel and Cemetery. The county has had multiple prior courthouses; all burned down, or were replaced by improved versions. The first court sessions in the county were held at Fort Butler.

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