MURFREE, Hardy, soldier, born in Hertford county, North Carolina, 5 June, 175e; died in Williamson county, '-Penn., 6 July, 1809. His father, William Murfree, was a member from Hartford county of the North Carolina congress that, convened at Halifax, 12 November, 1776, and framed a constitution so "well ordered" that without amendment it continued to be the organic law of the state from 1776 till 1835. At the age of twenty-three Hardy was appointed captain of the 2d regiment of the Continental line of North Carolina by the Provincial congress that met at Halifax, 21 August, 1775. During the first part of the war his regiment served with the main body of the army under Washington. At the capture of Stony Point, Murfree, who was then a major, commanded the North Carolina battalion of picked men that took position immediately in front of the fort and opened fire upon the enemy to attract attention from the storming columns. The sword that he wore on this occasion is now in possession of the Tennessee historical society. The next year Major Murfree and his command were transferred to the south, and we hear little of him till the close of the war. His descendants have the sash that he used in helping bear from the battle-field General Francis Nash, who was mortally wounded in the battle of Germantown. It still shows the stains of his blood. After the war Colonel Murfree " was found busy with his plantation " on the banks of Meherrin river, near the town of Murfreesboro, North Carolina In 1807 he emigrated to Tennessee, where he owned large tracts of land, and settled on Murfree's fork of West Harpeth, in Williamson county. The town of Murfreesboro in Tennessee was named in honor of him. His letters and memoranda show that he was well educated and possessed of great native intelligence.--His great-granddaughter, Mary Noailles, author, born at Grantlands near Murfreesborough, Tennessee. about 1850, became lame early in life from a stroke of paralysis, and thus, prevented from indulging in the ordinary amusements of youth, she turned to books and became a hard student. The civil war reduced the family fortune, and they removed from their residence in Nashville back to Grantland, and then to St. Louis, Missouri Under these circumstances she began to write stories of life in the Tennessee mountains, where she had spent much time, which, under the pen-name of Charles Egbert Cradclock, she sent to the "Atlantic Monthly" in which they appeared. These were followed by longer stories, but it was several years before her identity was known. Her published works are "In the Tennessee Mountains," a volume of stories (Boston, 1884)" " Where the Battle was Fought" (1884); " Down the Ravine" (1885)" "The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains" (1885) . "In the Clouds " (1886)" "The Story of Keedon Bluffs" (1887) ; and "The Despot of Broomsedge Cove" (1888).