Description:Near three-quarter length portrait of subject seated and turned slighly right. His left hand is resting on chair arm and his right holds a brass-handled cane. He is wearing the black coat, vest, and tie at the neck of his high-collared shirt typical of the period. He is nearly bald, and the hair that is visible is greying. He looks directly at the viewer from under bushy eyebrows.
History:Portrait has passed down through the Murfree family.
Notes:Subject born at Melrose, the Murfree family home, Murfreesboro, North Carolina, in 1788, son of Col. Hardy Murfree and Sally Brickell Murfree. He married Mary Roberts Murfree in the early 1800s and migrated to Tennessee to farm large tracts of land which belonged to his father, some of which he inherited in 1809 when his father died. Subject built several large houses on his property on the south side of East Main Street. The first of these is supposed to be the first house built on East Main Street. Subject died in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1853.
