Letter from Bruce Neal to Elias A. Murray, of Oklahoma (1939)

Winfield Scott Murray married (1) Caroline. Her last name is not known. She may be related to the Wrights, by evidence of an older woman by that surname, who lived in the Murray household in 1850, in Union County, Georgia. Winfield appears in census under the given names of Winfield S., W.S., and Scott. The surname is spelled various ways: Murray, Murry, and Mury. Winfield's second wife was Nancy C. Petty, daughter of Elijah Petty. They married on 1 July 1866, in Blairsville, Union County, Georgia, and are found in the 1870 census in Fannin County. Winfield S. Murray died in 1877 and is buried at Sugar Hill Cemetery, in Fannin County, Georgia.

Nancy (Petty) Murray and her grown children moved to Murray County, Georgia. Later, they left Georgia, probably between 1908 and 1910, and moved to Oklahoma. Nancy died in Fletcher, Comanche County, Oklahoma, in 1917, and is buried at Highland Cemetery in Lawton, of that same county. 

When Elias got older, he began to worry about the unmarked graves back in Georgia, of his father and two little sisters, Georgia and Dovie Murray. He ordered some stones for the graves. Dallas Woody (son of Nancy's half-sister, Lydia), showed Neal where to find W. S. Murray's grave. Elias Murray had sent a plat showing the other two graves in relation to his father's grave. Willie Lee Pritchett, grandson of W. S. and Nancy (Petty) Murray, helped put up the stones. He wrote a letter to his uncle Elias, and enclosed it in Mr. Neal's letter. Below is the correspondence, sent to me by Lavita Murray, of Oklahoma.

Above: Bruce Neal Letter to E. A. Murray

Above: Letter from W. L. Pritchett to Elias A. Murray
and Envelope, with Neal Monument Co. Return Address