Martin Murphy, Sr. (1785-1865) was born in County Wexford, Ireland and emigrated with his family to Quebec in 1820 and then to Missouri in 1840. In 1844 26 members of the Murphy family crossed the plains to California by way of what later became known as Donner Pass. They were the first emigrant party to take wagons over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Later, members of the large Murphy family became millionaires in the gold rush, held large farms and ranches in and around San Jose and other parts of California, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico, were powerful in state and local politics and were considered to be among the more prominent of Californi's first families.