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James Murray

Birth: March 7, 1841, Ballard Vale, Andover, Massachusetts
Death: March 10, 1905, Cincinnati, Ohio

The probable composer of the hymn tune MUELLER ("Away in a Manger") was James Ramsey Murray. Born in 1841, he studied at the Musical Institute in North Reading, Massachusetts. He studied with Lowell Mason, George Root, William Bradbury and George Webb. He enlisted in the Civil War as an Army musician, composing his first song "Daisy Deane" while in a Virginia camp in 1863.

After the war he joined the Root and Cady publishing house in Chicago, Illinois, as editor of The Song Messenger. He remained with them until the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, after which he returned to Andover to teach music in the public schools. In 1881 he moved to Cincinnati, where he was editor of the Musical Visitor for the John Church Co.