Before that, Murdoch was the city attorney in Alton, Illinois, where he unsuccessfully prosecuted rioters who killed Elijah Parish Lovejoy, an anti-slavery newspaper publisher, in 1837.

[5][6] According to historical accounts, Murdoch was "fair and impartial" and applied the law equally on both sides, although he clearly sympathized with opponents of slavery.

[8] Francis B. Murdoch has been called "one of the most important slave attorneys in the history of the St. Louis freedom suits.

[9] Murdoch represented Polly Berry and her daughter Lucy A. Delaney, together with lawyer Edward Bates.

[10] Murdoch helped many of his clients establish their freedom, but in doing so, angered and annoyed slaveholders and proslavery groups.

[7] On one occasion in 1843, he found it necessary to seek an injunction to prevent a group of prominent citizens from interfering with a client.

[5] Anderson had also lived in Alton, Illinois, where he worked as a typesetter for Elijah Lovejoy's abolitionist newspaper.

[5] The Scotts' freedom suits were the last ones he filed in St. Louis, and Murdoch was unable to personally take their cases to trial.

[7] Murdoch abruptly left town with his wife and nearly all of his children, taking them to one of his brothers in Michigan,[7] before eventually settling in California.

[7] Murdoch headed to the West Coast in May 1852, settling in San Jose, California, in September of that year.

On April 28, 1857, he wrote of the frustrations of representing enslaved litigants in court:[7]The advocate who pleads against slavery wastes his voice in its vaulted roof, and upon ears stuffed sixty years with cotton.

[1] By 1829, Murdoch was married to Eliza Kimmel, and their son George was born on August 29 of that year in Bedford, Pennsylvania.

[14][22] He was buried next to his wife, Mary Elizabeth Murdoch, in the Oak Hill Memorial Park in San Jose.

At least two of Murdoch's sons, George and Francis, moved to Berrien Springs and established their own careers as newspapermen.