John T. McMurran

John T. McMurran
Detail of Norman's chart of the lower Mississippi River showing J. T. McMurran's River Side plantation in Wilkinson County, Mississippi c. 1855, just north along the river above from the plantation complex that is now Angola Prison; Riverside was half of the former Clarksville plantation
Born(1801-04-21)April 21, 1801
Franklin County, Pennsylvania
DiedDecember 30, 1866(1866-12-30) (aged 65)
New Orleans, Louisiana

John Thompson McMurran (April 29, 1801–December 30, 1866) was a 19th-century American lawyer and state legislator in Mississippi. McMurran & Quitman, a partnership with John A. Quitman, was once the largest law practice in southwest Mississippi before the American Civil War. According to historian Kimberly Welch, "As Ariela Gross shows, Natchez attorneys (who often became judges, planters, and politicians) were some of the most influential men in their communities and actively shaped the slave economy and the legal culture of the antebellum South." In addition to representing White clients McMurran and Quitman "represented Black clients (free and enslaved) in a wide range of cases, from freedom suits to debt actions to criminal cases." In later years he also owned cotton plantations. He is perhaps best known today as the original owner of Melrose house in Natchez, presently part of the Natchez National Historical Park. McMurran was one of the 43 people killed as a result of the burning of the steamboat Fashion 50 miles (80 km) above Baton Rouge, Louisiana in December 1866.

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