Samuel J. Murray (March 7, 1851 – August 23, 1915) was a New York printer's apprentice, inventor, and businessman. At the time of his death at age sixty-five, Murray was vice president and treasurer of the

United States Playing Card Company The United States Playing Card Company (USPC, though also commonly known as USPCC) is a large American producer and distributor of playing cards. It was established in 1867 as Russell, Morgan & Co. and founded in its current incarnation in 1885. ...

, and a director of the W.B. Oglesby Paper Company of

Middletown, Ohio Middletown is a city located in Butler and Warren counties in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, about 35 miles (47 km) north of Cincinnati. The population as of the 2020 census was 50,987. It is part of the Cincinnati metropo ...

. His block of stock in the United States Playing Card Company was said to be worth $1,000,000. Called "a mechanical genius, the marvel and admiration of the technical and inventive world", Murray made his mark on the United States Playing Card Company by creating and installing manufacturing equipment, such as an automatic punch machine which "increased the output of cards fourfold" and reduced labor costs by sixty-six percent. With the automatic punch machine, great sheets of paper were fed into the machine and came out as complete packs of playing cards, printed in four colors. The Paper Box Maker and American Bookbinde
"Ohio: Correspondence from Dayton Includes Brief Biography of the Late Samuel J. Murray"
Volumes 23-24, 1914, p. 20

Early life

Murray was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on March7, 1851. He grew up in Brooklyn and was childhood friends with

Timothy Sullivan Timothy Daniel Sullivan (July 23, 1862 – August 31, 1913) was a New York politician who controlled Manhattan's Bowery and Lower East Side districts as a prominent leader within Tammany Hall. He was known euphemistically as "Dry Dollar", as the ...

who introduced him to

John F. Ahearn John F. Ahearn (April 18, 1853 – December 19, 1920) was an American politician and publisher. A prominent New York City political figure and a member of the Tammany Hall political machine, he served in the New York State Assembly, the New York ...

, whose daughter would eventually marry his son

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. Murray's father died in the

Draft riots The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), sometimes referred to as the Manhattan draft riots and known at the time as Draft Week, were violent disturbances in Lower Manhattan, widely regarded as the culmination of white working-cl ...

when he was 12 years old. To help support his mother, two younger sisters, Catherine and Elizabeth, and younger brother, William, Murray found a job after school as a newsie delivering newspapers. He also worked as a waiter. His mother died when he was thirteen, leaving him to raise his younger siblings on his own.Newspaper Devoted to the Best Interests of Norwood, OH, "Death of a Man Who Refused a $2,000,000 Position Offered to Him," August 26, 1915 He was hired as a

printer's devil A printer's devil was a young apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type. Notable writers including Ambrose Bierce, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain served ...

by Victor Eugene Mauger, where Murray learned from a worked sent to the US from the Goodall plant in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

.Paper, Devoted to the Manufacture, Sale and Use of Pulp and Paper
Samuel J. Murray is dead
Volume 16, 9/1/15, p. 28

Rising fortunes

After his attempt to start a small playing card plant in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pea ...

, Canada was thwarted by a money panic, Murray was recruited in 1881 by Colonel Robert J. Morgan of the Russell & Morgan Company, to assist in the manufacture of playing cards at their plant in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

. Here, Murray thrived and with him, the fortunes of Russell & Morgan: Murray had a falling out with Russell & Morgan and in 1886 went off on his own to form the National Playing Card Company in Indianapolis – a move that Russell & Morgan came to regret. According to one source, as a competitor, Murray "was a serious menace to the Russell & Morgan Company and as a matter of self preservation, the latter bought him out, consolidating the Indianapolis concern with the United States Playing Card Company." As a concession, Murray was given a "block of stock in the merger" and "unrestricted charge of the manufacture of playing cards." After this, he was steadfast in his loyalty to the United States Playing Card Company, even turning down an offer of $2 million by a big printing house in New York. Murray is credited with several inventions including th
re-usable paper
box
a machine for cutting cardboard
and a streamlined process fo
printing and packaging playing cards

Marriage and family

Murray married childhood sweetheart Annie E. Reilley. They had five children: Victor C. Murray, who followed him into the United States Playing Card Company;

William J. Murray William J. Murray III (born May 25, 1946) is an American author, Baptist minister, and Social conservatism in the United States, social conservative lobbyist who serves as the chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, a non-profit organizatio ...

, a well known businessman in New York, married to the daughter of

, a member of the New York State Senate from 1890 to 1902; Jane Murray Egan, married to Clifford Egan, son of Thomas P. Egan of Cincinnati manufacturer J.A. Fay & Egan Company;The Spokesman and Harness World
Marriage announcement
Spokesman Publishing Company, December 1909, p. 519 Miss Geneva M. Murray; and Samuel J. Murray, Jr.

Death

On August19, 1915, Murray died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

.Cincinnati Enquirer
GENIUS Lost In Death of Samuel J. Murray
August 24, 1915 He is buried at the Holy Cross and Saint Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana.

References

External links

Patents

Card packing patentPaper box patentProcess for printing playing cards
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, Samuel J. American inventors 1851 births 1915 deaths People from New York City Burials at Holy Cross and Saint Joseph Cemetery Playing cards