We are putting the 1860’s farm house research on hold in light of a new development with St. Louis County. The county is pursuing historic designation for the house, so they are looking into the records (such as they are) on the house. That being the case, I am once again picking up my search on a house we own on Big Bend that houses our landscape architecture business.
According to the county, the house was built in 1900. However, when we did an addition off the back of the house several years ago, the contractor felt certain the house was older than that due to the type of nails that were used in the original structure. I know that John J. Murdoch originally owned the 278 acre farm known as Shrewsbury Park and that he sold it to the Shrewsbury Land Development Corporation at some point. In 1889, according to the county plat book, Shrewsbury was officially platted on property purchased from John Murdoch. I have been thus far unable to find a deed showing Murdoch selling the land. And when I look up Shrewsbury Land Development as either buyers or sellers, I find dozens of transactions. So short of looking at each and every deed, I can’t tell which transaction refers to our property.
My next step was to work backwards from ourselves as buyers of the property. I have successfully located all the property owners back to 1938, but then the trail fizzled out. I found residents of the home through county directories back to 1928, then ran out of luck with that source. I’ll head back to the county tomorrow to see if I can find something I missed in the deeds.
In the meantime, I have been trying to find out more about Murdoch. Supposedly he was a general in the Civil War. You would think a man of such prominence would be in the newspapers or at least official records. I can find nothing on this man, not even in the census records. I have gathered information about a John J. Murdoch who was an auctioneer and had a company called Murdoch & Dickson. I found him in the city directories, and found a nice article about his death. But somehow I don’t think he is the correct John J. Murdoch. Surely his obituary would have mentioned his farm, or being a general in the war. Just my luck to have two John J. Murdochs in the same city during the same time frame. It’s a puzzle, and that’s what makes genealogy and house history research so fun. Finding the missing pieces!