George Alexander Murdock was born in Elgin, Scotland, in 1824. Upon finishing his schooling, he was apprenticed to a dry goods merchant for five years. He then worked in a wholesale house in London for two years.

He came to America with Alexander Inness. They operated a dry goods business in Buffalo, New York, for several years. In the 1850s, they brought a stock of dry goods to Galesburg. As there was no store space available, they successfully sold the goods from a hotel room.

A partnership was formed with two other Scotsmen, Arthur Inness and John Phinnister, and a larger store was opened. The men also erected the Caledonia Hall which was the first auditorium or opera house in Galesburg. It was located on the southwest corner of Main and Prairie Streets. The building was later known as the Holmes Block and was destroyed in a large fire.

George Murdock served on the Galesburg Board of Education for eighteen years. He was an advocate of manual training for boys and cooking classes for girls. He also favored more exercise for the students. He arranged with Knox College that the military drill master would also train the high school boys.

Carl Sandburg recalled in his autobiography, Always the Young Strangers, that Mr. Murdock visited the seventh grade students. He told them that “education would count in life’s struggles.” Those words resounded with Sandburg. He knew something about life’s struggles.

It was Murdoch’s goal to have a United States flag in every school. According to Sandburg, Mr. Murdock spent so much time improving Galesburg that he lost his business. There is no mention of this in Murdoch’s obituary.

Murdoch retired from business in 1894 and entered politics. He served two terms as city assessor and was the city poor master at the time of his death in 1899.

Lucy Manning Thompson, a native of Muscatine, Iowa, visited Galesburg often as she was related to the Thompson family who had been among the founders of Galesburg. She and George were married January 27, 1865, and moved into the house at 396 North Prairie Street. They lived there the rest of their lives and raised their four children in that house.

On March 23, 1899, the Galesburg High School students were assembled and told of the death of G.A. Murdoch. He had been a special friend of the high school during his years on the Board of Education. The students knew he had worked for the improvement of the schools and the city. The Galesburg Mail reported: “The death was heard of in the schools with the deepest sorrow both by the students and the faculty.”

Mr. and Mrs. Murdoch are buried in Hope Cemetery along with two of their sons and one daughter.