About a year ago, the newspapers announced the death of Mr. John Murray, for many years the secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, and I would do violence to truth and humanity whose servant and soldier he was, should I neglect to pen a few recollections of that most earnest and efficient man.

He was related to the ancient and honorable family of the Oswalds of Sheildhall, and received that excellent educational and religious training which is given to the children of the middle and higher classes in Scotland. At the age of twenty-two or three, in consequence of an attack of pulmonary hemorrhage, he sailed for the West Indies and found employment at his trade, house-building, in St. Kitts. Very soon, however, he found other matters to engage, and almost engross his attention and labors; in conjunction with an uncle of George Stephen of London, and a Dr. Hamilton, resident in St. Kitts, he did manly and successful fight in behalf of the wronged and bleeding slave.

After a residence in that island of some years, during which he obtained a thorough knowledge of the workings of slavery, he returned to Glasgow, poor in pocket, but rich in abolitionism. Soon after his return, he was united in marriage to Miss Anna ——, a lady whose perfect harmony in sentiment, softened by feminine delicacy, made a happy anti-slavery home for the zealous and ardent abolitionism of John Murray. It was a union of hearts attached in early youth, and which had remained “leal” during a long separation.

Shortly after marriage, he commenced business as a spirit-dealer, then and now a most reputable calling in the opinion of the good citizens of Glasgow. Temperate himself, his calling gradually became unpleasant to him. At first he refused to sell spirits to any person partly inebriated; then he reasoned himself into a total abandonment of the death-dealing traffic. With no other business prospect before him, prevented by his long difficulty from working at his trade, with a young wife and child dependent on him, he suddenly locked up his spirit-cellar and never more sold rum!

In 1828 or 1829, through the influence of his kinsman, James Oswald, Esq., of Sheildhall, Mr. Murray was appointed surveyor on a part of the Forth and Clyde canal, an office requiring much labor for little pay. His prospects of promotion depended on Mr. Oswald and other members of the Kirk of Scotland. Mr. Murray was a full member of the Tron Church, Glasgow, when, according to law, a minister was appointed there regardless of the choice, and contrary to the wishes of the great majority of its members. In consequence of this appointment, and again unmindful of personal advancement, John Murray shook the dust from his sandals and quit at once and forever the Tron Church and the Kirk of Scotland.

About the same time the Glasgow Emancipation Society was formed or re-organized, on the doctrine of immediate emancipation so splendidly announced by a secession minister of Edinburgh. The secretaries of this association were John Murray the surveyor, and William Smead, of the Gallowgate, grocer; the last a Friend. These two were the head and front, the thinking and the locomotive power of this well known association which did notable fight, if not the principal labor, in effecting emancipation in the British West Indies, and in assaulting American slavery.

And, twenty odd years ago, it was no trifling matter to do anti-slavery work in Glasgow, the very names of whose stateliest streets proclaimed that they were built by money wrung out of the blood and sweat of the negroes of Jamaica, St. Vincents, etc. The whole of the retired wealth, nearly all the active business influence, the weight of the Established Church, the rank and fashion of Glasgow, and though last not least, the keen wit of the poet Motherwell,[N] and the great statistical learning and industry of M’Queen were arrayed on the side of the slave-holder. Sugar and cotton and rum were lords of the ascendant! Yet the poor surveyor and the humble grocer fought on; nor did they fight alone; the silvery voice and keen acumen of Ralph Wardlaw, the earnest and powerful Hugh Heugh, the inexorable logic and burning sarcasm of swarthy Wully Anderson, and the princely munificence of James Johnston, combined to awaken the people to the enormity of slavery. And the Voluntary Church movement, and the fight for the Reform Bill aroused a varied eloquence in the orators who plead for, and a kindling enthusiasm in the people who were struggling on the liberal side of all these questions; for the people, battling for their own rights, had heart room to hear the prayer for the rights of others more deeply oppressed. Thus ever will liberty be expansive and expanding in the direction of human brotherhood.

Then Knibb came along with his fiery eloquence, which swept over and warmed the hearts of the people with indignation at the dishonor done religion in the martyrdom of the missionary Smith; and then the grand scene in the British emancipation drama, the overthrow of Bostwick by George Thompson, and the monster petitions and the reluctant assent of the ministry and the passage of the bill.

Those were stirring times in Glasgow, and it did one’s heart good to see John Murray in their midst. The arrangements for nearly all those movements originated with, and were carried out by him; he never made a speech of one minute long, yet he most effectively arranged all the speaking, drew up all the resolutions and reports and addresses; and most of the movements in England, the pressure upon the ministry, and the advocacy in Parliament were the result of his wide and laborious correspondence. He used more than one ream of paper for manuscripts upon the great cause which he seemed born to carry out successfully. In addition to his other correspondence, nearly every issue of two of the Glasgow tri-weekly papers contained able articles from his pen in reply to the elaborate defence of slavery carried on in the Glasgow Courier by Mr. M’Queen. And yet this man, doing this mighty work, was so entirely unobtrusive, so quiet in his labors, that few beyond the committee knew him other than the silent secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society. And I shall not soon forget the perfect consternation with which he heard a vote of thanks tendered him by resolution at an annual meeting of the society.

In 1835 or 1836, Mr. Murray was promoted to the office of collector at Bowling Bay, for the company he had so long and faithfully served. And many an anti-slavery wayfarer can testify to the warm welcome and genial hospitality of the snug little stone building so beautifully packed on the Clyde entrance of the Forth and Clyde canal. A charming family, consisting of a devoted wife, two most promising boys, and a retiring, sweet tempered girl, made happy the declining years of this great friend of the slave, and earnest pioneer in many reforms. Freedom for Ireland, the Peace Question, Radical Reform, a Free Church, and Total Abstinence, were questions to all of which Mr. Murray devoted his pen and his purse. His soul received and advocated whatever looked towards human progress.

In person, Mr. Murray was tall and gaunt, and would strongly remind one of Henry Clay. About a mile from Bowling Bay, within the enclosure that surrounds the Relief Church, in a sweet quiet spot, the green turf now covers what remains of the once active frame of John Murray; and as, with moistened cheek, I fling this pebble upon his cairn, I cannot help thinking how much more has been done for the cause of human progress by this faithful servant to his own convictions of the truth, than by the nation-wept sage of Ashland.

New York, Sept. 25, 1852.