"Little is known of Timothy Murphy's early life. Born in 1751 near the Delaware Water Gap to parents who had only recently immigrated from County Donegal, Ireland, when he was eight his family moved to Shamokin Flats (now Sunbury) in Pennsylvania. Some years after that he was apprenticed to the Van Campen family, and with them relocated to the Wyoming Valley frontier.
On 29 June 1775, Murphy and his brother John enlisted in Captain John Lowdon's Company of Northumberland County Riflemen, and subsequently served in the Siege of Boston, the Battle of Long Island, and skirmishing in Westchester. Later, he became a Sergeant in the 12th Regiment of the Pennsylvania Line and served at Trenton, Princeton, and New Brunswick. An expert marksman (able to hit a seven inch target at 250 yards), Murphy qualified for Morgan's Rifle Corps, and was transferred to that elite organization in July 1777, shortly after its inception. In August of the same year, Murphy was one of 500 hand-picked riflemen sent north to reinforce the Continental forces opposing General Sir John Burgoyne's invasion of Northern New York.
It was at the Battle of Bemis Heights (Second Battle of Saratoga), 7 October 1777, that Murphy is reputed to have fired the shots that killed Sir Francis Clerke and General Simon Fraser, throwing the British command of the battle into disarray…"
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Armand
scratchbuilds another Victorian flying machine.
