Joseph T. Murray
Joseph Thomas Murray ( born May 12, 1834 in Salem, Massachusetts, † January 27, 1907 in Springfield, Massachusetts) was an American manufacturer and inventor.
Life and work
Joseph Thomas Murray was a son of coming from England mathematician and stenographers James Mason Murray ( 1787-1880 ). He and his family moved to Newark in 1844. At age eleven, he wanted to be a sailor and was taken by his uncle on his sailing boat trip to Africa. The young Murray piled up due to the harassment of his uncle already at the first opportunity and lived six months with the locals in Benin. There he witnessed the effects of slavery. Murray became a supporter of abolitionism. He was in contact with John Greenleaf Whittier and the Mayor of Lynn James Needham Buffum (1807-1887), who also fought against slavery. Together with William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, he had connections to the informal network of Underground Railroad, which helped slaves to escape from the South to the North. Once Murray was arrested by the U.S. Marshal Charles Devens, when he smuggled a black man by Boston.
Murray began his training in 1848 at the Everett Machinery Works in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where he learned the mechanics industry. For two years he served as postmaster in Danvers. During the American Civil War, Murray served in the 35th Regiment Massachusetts.
Murray was employed, which was founded by Thomas Alva Edison and George Harrington on October 1, 1870 Company American Telegraph Works, the telegraphic produced. Together with Edison, he founded the small company Murray and Company, which also produced equipment for the Telegraph in February 1872. As a company founded by Edison and William Unger in February 1870 Newark Telegraph Works, which changed its name after moving in May 1871 in the Newarker Ward Street under the name Edison and Unger, on July 1, 1873 ceased operations, took over the July to October 1873 founded company Edison and Murray most of the staff. Another business partnership between Edison and Murray as well as the inventor Bonestreet Jarvis Edson (1911-1845) was the Domestic Telegraph Company, founded on April 2, 1874. As Edison in the spring of 1875 decided to concentrate fully on his creative activity Edison and Murray was formally dissolved on 13 July 1875. Until his move to Menlo Park Edison led his experiments continue in the building in the Ward Street continues.
Joseph Thomas Murray died in 1907 at the home of his daughter May Murray of pneumonia.
Patents
- J. T. Murray: Journal Bearing. U.S. Patent 413 081, October 15, 1889, PDF.
- J. T. Murray: Lamp Wick. U.S. Patent 519795, May 15, 1894 PDF.