John Murray 4th earl of Dunmore

John Murray Dunmore, 4th earl of 1732-1809, British colonial governor of Virginia, a Scottish peer. Appointed governor of New York in 1770, he remained there for about 11 months before being transferred to Virginia. In 1774 he led the Virginians in a campaign against Native Americans usually known as Lord Dunmore's War. Sending one expedition under Andrew Lewis west by the Kanawha valley, he personally headed the northern column, which set out from Fort Dunmore at Pittsburgh. Lewis defeated the Native Americans at Point Pleasant, and Dunmore negotiated a final treaty with them in the Scioto valley. When the news of Lexington and Concord reached Virginia, Dunmore, who twice before had dissolved the house of burgesses for its procolonist stand, removed the colony's gunpowder stores to a man-of-war. The aroused Virginians made him pay for the powder. Threats against his life forced him to take refuge (June, 1775) on shipboard where he declared martial law and sent out loyal troops, who were defeated at Great Bridge on Dec. 9, 1775. In Jan., 1776, he attacked Norfolk from the sea, but in July he was forced to return to England. From 1787 to 1796 he was governor of the Bahamas.

Bibliography: See R. G. Thwaites and L. P. Kellogg, ed., Documentary History of Dunmore's War, 1774 (1905).

Murray, John (1730 or 1732–1809) (4th earl of Dunmore) royal governor of Virginia (1771–76), born probably in Perthshire, Scotland. His expedition against the Shawnee of Kentucky, known as Lord Dunmore's War (1774), forced their withdrawal north of the Ohio River and removed the last obstacle to colonial conquest of that area. Murray was much disliked by the colonialists, who believed he threatened their liberties. Forced to flee from the capital (1775), he gathered a small loyalist force that raided plantations and captured rebel munitions in the vicinity of Norfolk while awaiting reinforcements that never came. He later became governor of the Bahamas (1786–96), where many loyalists had emigrated.

Murray fell from favor at court when his daughter married a son of George III in violation of the Royal Marriage Act, and the king dismissed him from office (1796).