Lindley Murray

Lindley Murray (1745 – 16 February 1826) was an American Quaker lawyer, writer, and grammarian, best known for his English-language grammar books used in schools in England and the United States.

Still, he sat on the committee to protect his family's shipping interests, which would be inhibited by the Continental Association's nonimportation clause.

With British troops in control of Manhattan, Murray returned to the island and joined his father in the import-export and shipping businesses that made him rich during the second half of the war.

These books passed through several editions, and the Grammar was the standard textbook for fifty years throughout England and America.

Against his wishes, at fourteen, he was sent to work at his father's accounting firm; Murray was mainly interested in science and literature.

The colonists who wanted to break away from British governance were patriots; those who remained loyal to The Crown were loyalists.

A nonimportation clause of Article 10 of the Continental Association called for a complete ban on British goods effective 1 February 1775.

The Committee of Sixty in New York saw it as their mission to prevent British goods from being unloaded from ships onto Colonial land.

[19] Murray's father, Robert, tried to have British goods unloaded starting 1 February, when a ship arrived at his dock, but was unsuccessful.

Robert sent a ship from his business in Elizabeth, New Jersey to come alongside the loaded Beulah near Staten Island.

The clandestine event was discovered, harming Robert's and other Murray family members' reputation and financial position.

[22] With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (19 April 1775 – 3 September 1783), Murray went with his wife to Islip, Long Island, where they lived for four years, fishing, shooting, and sailing.

[5] In hopes of improving his health, Murray and his wife left America and moved to England for a milder climate in the summer of 1784.

"Extracts from the Writings of divers Eminent Men representing the Evils of Stage Plays, &c." was added to the 8th edition in 1795.

[9] As requested by teachers at a Friends' school for girls in York, he wrote suitable lesson books, including his English Grammar that was published in 1795.

[9] Influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment, Murray's book won Abraham Lincoln's approval and is said to have inspired anti-slavery sentiment in America and abroad.

[9] In addition to the praises that his works elicited, he was criticised for his failure to provide sufficient etymology and to have published mistakes.

[5] The sales of the Grammar, Exercises, Key, and Lecteur Francais brought Murray in each case £700, and he devoted the whole sum to philanthropic objects.

[9] There are two historical markers for Murray in Harper Tavern, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania on PA 934, one of them .2 mile north of US 22.

[2] Both markers have the same wording: "Famous grammarian, author of the English Grammar, was born 7 June 1745, in a house near this point.

From a painting by E. Percy Moran, Mrs. Murray's strategy , Mary Lindley Murray entertaining British soldiers on the porch during the American Revolution to prevent them from fighting against the outnumbered patriots in the area.
Holgate House , built in 1774, in the Holgate area of York