Mary Colvin Murphy

Mary Colvin Murphy. Image Source: From the Durham Sun (Durham, N.C.), February 17, 1940, p. 3.

Mary Colvin Murphy (née Colvin) — sister-in-law of ECTC president Robert H. Wright (1870–1934) — served as a member of East Carolina’s board of trustees from 1927–1945, during the final years of the school’s marked physical expansion in the 1920s and then throughout the 1930s, a decade of gender diversification with increasing numbers of men on campus. As a trustee, Murphy was, incidentally, representative of a different kind of gender diversification, that of women serving on the largely male-dominated board of trustees. She was, after all, only the second woman to be appointed a trustee: the first, Elizabeth Clark Connor (1880–1937), served for just one year, from 1926–1927. Murphy’s own 18-year tenure as a trustee and her appointment by four different governors, Angus Wilton McLean (1870-1935), Oliver Max Gardner (1882-1947), John C. B. Erhlinghaus (1882-1949), and Clyde R. Hoey (1877-1954), was exceptional.

Following her brother-in-law’s passing in 1934, Murphy emerged as a loyal supporter of Dr. Leon R. Meadows (1884–1953), the new president, even as, in the mid-1940s, an embezzlement scandal enveloped his administration. Despite mounting evidence of financial mismanagement and a public statement by Gov. Joseph Melville Broughton (1888–1949) declaring Meadows’ mishandling of student funds to be “shockingly unbusinesslike and highly irregular,” Murphy joined the majority of board members in voting, in the spring of 1944, to declare, in the board’s view, Meadows exonerated.

In the summer of 1944, Murphy and most of the board voted in support of Meadows’ firing of six faculty — Dr. Herbert Rebarker (1894–1979), Dr. Elisha Lane Henderson (1884–1990), and Martin L. Wright (1882–1945), Katherine Holtzclaw (1897–1979), Pearl Chapman (1904–1993), and Dr. Beecher Flanagan (1896–1951) — for their alleged disloyalty to the administration. Furthermore, with Murphy’s support, the board declared that said faculty were “unwholesome influences” who had incited “insurrection among students.” Only three trustees — Arthur B. Corey (1891–1950) and J. Herbert Waldrop (1895–1966) of Greenville and O. P. Makepeace (1883–1965) of Sanford — voted in opposition to the firings. The same three, plus Alexander Boyd Andrews II (1877–1946), had earlier opposed declaring Meadows exonerated. In the end, board support for Meadows could not save him from resignation, arrest, two criminal trials, conviction, and imprisonment for misuse of student funds.

As a female trustee, Murphy was not alone in supporting Meadows: Mrs. Charles S. Forbes (1883–1964) of Greenville, Mrs. John G. Dawson (1888–1975) of Kinston, Mrs. F. L. Greathouse (1893–1970) of Rocky Mount, and Mrs. Charles M. Johnson (1893–1972) of Raleigh also supported Meadows at every turn. Apparently, as a consequence, in June 1945, when the terms of Forbes, Dawson, and Murphy expired, Gov. Robert Gregg Cherry (1891–1957) declined to reappoint them. Thereafter, Mrs. Greathouse and Mrs. Johnson were the only women serving on the board, their terms not expiring until 1947 and 1948 respectively, at which point, they were not reappointed either.

A native of Atkinson in Pender County, Mary Murphy (née Colvin) married Dr. William Bailey Murphy, Jr. (1878–1937), the younger brother of Pearl Murphy Wright (1876-1965), wife of East Carolina’s first president, Robert H. Wright. She and her husband lived most of their married life in Snow Hill in Greene County. Politically active, Mary Murphy served as vice chair of the State Democratic Party’s Executive Committee. In 1940, she resigned that position to manage the women’s branch of Allen J. Maxwell’s (1873–1946) gubernatorial campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination. State senator, J. Melville Broughton, however, defeated Maxwell, undermining Murphy’s prominence in Democratic Party politics.

Throughout her career as a trustee, Murphy was active in public life. She was a member of the State Historical Association and contributed to local historical studies, authoring a brief but definitive article on the early-eighteenth century house of Henry Best, located near Snow Hill in Greene County. She was a respected member of the Col. Alexander McAllister Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Women’s Auxiliary of the State Medical Society, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She is credited with helping to organize the Greene County Public Library and served as chair of its board of trustees. She also served as president of the State Peace Alumnae Association, as Greene County historian, as a trustee for Memorial General Hospital, Kinston, and as president of the Snow Hill High School PTA.

Sources

• “College Board Holds Session: Takes Steps Looking to Putting In Effect Building Work at Greenville.” News and Observer. April 15, 1927. P. 11.
• “Joins Maxwell.” Daily Dispatch (Henderson). February 17, 1940. P. 3.
• “Mrs. W. B. Murphy to Manage Women in State for Maxwell: Snow Hill Woman Long Active in Public Affairs.” Durham Sun. February 17, 1940. P. 3.
• Murphy, Mrs. W. B. “The Old Best House.” The State. April 27, 1940. P. 6. North Carolina Digital Collections. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p16062coll18/id/5426
• “Naming of Mrs. Murphy Is Believed Coup for Maxwell.” Daily Dispatch (Henderson). February 17, 1940. P. 3.
• Newsome, Frances. “ECTC Trustees Stand Pat on Action in Three Cases.” News and Observer. July 19, 1944. Pp. 1, 2.
• Newsome, Frances. “Meadows Audit Received by Trustees of College.” News and Observer. March 11, 1944. Pp. 1, 3.
• Pearl Murphy Wright Collection, 1844-1967, undated; bulk 1906-1956. Manuscript Collection # 1394. J. Y. Joyner Library. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.
• “Pretty Marriage in Tomahawk: Miss Charlotte Pearl Murphy to Mr. Robert H. Wright of Baltimore.” Morning Star (Wilmington, N.C.), January 1, 1903. P. 1.

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