[3] His father was Jesee Ellis Murphree, a Confederate veteran of the Civil War; his mother was Emily Helen Cornelius.

[4] His parents raised him in a family of ten children in Walnut Grove, Alabama, where he attended community schools and a local two-year college.

[5] He graduated from the University of Nashville with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1894,[6] and taught mathematics at several high schools and small colleges in Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.

[10] He subsequently started and completed the academic work for a Master of Arts degree while serving as president of the seminary, renamed Florida State College in 1901.

From 1905 to 1909, Murphree emphasized greater academic expectations for his female students,[12] while upgrading and expanding the college's curriculum to meet modern university standards.

[15] Murphree assumed his new duties during the summer of 1909, and worked diligently with his predecessor to ensure a smooth transition that capitalized on previous successes.

[16] In a surprise to some of his previous political supporters, Murphree endorsed Sledd's admissions standards, and thereafter actually tightened the requirements for entry again in 1912.

[26] As a result of his friendship with Murphree, Bryan volunteered to be the fund-raising drive chairman for the construction of the university's new Florida Union building (now known as Dauer Hall).

[28] Murphree's name was floated as a possible gubernatorial candidate on several occasions, but he publicly disavowed any personal interest in elected office.

[32] Bryan later told Senator J. Thomas Heflin that his reception by his fellow convention delegates was the most humiliating of his life.

[34] They are both buried in St. John's Episcopal Church cemetery in downtown Tallahassee, only a few blocks from Florida State University.

[36] While he was not the founding president, Murphree built upon the solid academic standards, faculty selections and planning of his predecessor, Andrew Sledd, and greatly expanded and improved upon them; he imposed the university's modern organizational structure and was responsible for the beginnings of many of its traditions.