Robert Small Murphy

Quick Facts

Significance:

Half-brother of Paul Laurence Dunbar

Place of Birth:

Dayton, OH

Date of Birth:

August 1st, 1866

Date of Death:

fl. 1940

Half-brother to Paul through their mother, Robert was born at the home of his maternal grandmother on Howard Street in Dayton, Ohio, the son of R. Weeks (or Wilson or Wills) Murphy and Matilda Burton, who separated before Robert’s birth. Robert attended schools in Dayton through the eighth grade before gaining employment as a janitor for the Beckel House, a Dayton hotel.

In 1887, Robert married a woman, perhaps a Ms. Holland, with whom he had five children. At a date before the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, he and his family moved to Chicago, where Robert worked for the city’s public schools system. Robert attended his mother’s funeral in Dayton in 1938, and died some time after February of 1940.