MURRAY, William Vans, a Representative from Maryland; born in Cambridge, Dorchester County, Md., February 9, 1760; completed preparatory studies; studied law at the Temple in London, which he entered April 28, 1784, and studied three years; returned to the United States; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Cambridge, Md., in 1791; member of the state house of delegates in 1791; elected as a Pro-Administration candidate to the Second and Third Congresses, and reelected as a Federalist to the Fourth Congress (March 4, 1791-March 3, 1797); Minister Resident to the Netherlands from March 2, 1797, to September 2, 1801; while holding this post was appointed by President Adams in 1799 a member of a diplomatic mission to France; died on his estate in Dorchester County, near Cambridge, Md., December 11, 1803; interment in the Christ Protestant Episcopal Church Cemetery, Cambridge, Md.
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[ Top ]DeConde, Alexander. "William Vans Murray and the Diplomacy of Peace: 1797-1800." Maryland Historical Magazine 48 (March 1953): 1-26.
Hill, Peter P. "The Political and Diplomatic Career of William Vans Murray, 1760-1803." Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1966.
------. William Vans Murray, Federalist Diplomat; The Shaping of Peace with France 1797-1801. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1971.
Murray, William Vans. Letters of William Vans Murray to John Quincy Adams, 1797-1803. Washington: N.p., 1914.
------. Political sketches, inscribed to His Excellency John Adams, Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States to the court of Great Britain. London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1787.
