Read: The Murphy Whitehackle / Gamefowl History

The exact composition of the Murphy Whitehackles will never be known. Tom Murphy undoubtedly was the greatest short heel cocker in the history of American cocking. During one span of years he won 49 consecutive stag mains without a loss against the finest cockers the country could produce. He also was the least communicative. He followed to the letter the old biblical admonition “let not your right hand know what your left hand doeth.” Nick Downes, his long time cocker trainer, may have known more or less of the Murphy Whitehackle bloodlines but Nick has been dead for many years, and he was never much of a talker in his lifetime either. All of Nick’s successors and they were numerous were kept in complete ignorance of the Murphy bloodlines and breeding practices. One such man complained, “I never know what is going on around here. He switches the cocks and hens around in the brood pens so often I can’t keep track of them, and I have no idea of which eggs he keeps and which ones he destroys.”

One time Mr. Murphy telephoned me requesting a certain cock to breed. I had given the cock to another friend, but recalled him for Mr. Murphy’s use. A few weeks later I spent the night at Mr. Murphy’s home where we spent considerable time looking over his numerous cocks, stags and brood pens. Not once did he mention the cock I had sent to him, nor did I see him. Then Mr. Murphy was called to the house to answer the telephone. At that same time I heard a cock crow behind a high solid board fence. I lifted myself up the fence in order to see over it and there was my cock in with two beautiful hens. He never referred to the mating, nor did I. That’s how we got along together.

Here is the story, which Mr. Murphy gave me as to the origin of his fowl. When I was a boy (which would have been in the 1880’s) there was an old Irishman who lived about 10 miles form my home on Long Island who had two old Whitehackle hens which I had my heart set upon. I used to walk over there at every opportunity just to look at them. But the old man would not let them go; he said he would not part with them for less than $50.00. The only way I had to earn any money was to shoot quail that I could sell for .25 cents a pair. It took me a long time to save $50.00 but I finally made it and went over there to claim my two hens. The old man was reluctant to part with them even then. Said I should take two younger hens or pullets., but I said no, that I wanted those two particular hens. Then he said he could not catch them because they roosted in the tall trees near his house. I said I could climb trees. So I waited until it got dark and the hens had gone to roost and then I climbed the tree and got the two hens. I walked the ten miles back home after dark with the two hens under each arm, and they were the foundation of my fowl.”

Mr. Murphy never told me to what cock he bred the two hens, or how the breeding operation was conducted during the succeeding years, just that and nothing more. But when I first knew him in the 1920’s, he had a strain established of uniform black red fowl that were well nigh invincible; terrific fighters and cutters with gameness to spare. Nick Downes was his cocker at that time and as I look back upon it, much of the success properly should be attributed to Nick’s superb conditioning procedure. Mr. Murphy was a master breeder. One of the greatest in the annuals of American cocking. Unfortunatley he divulged few of his breeding secrets to anyone. Least of all did he divulge them to the men who worked for him: Jimmy Chipps, Andy Thomason, Johnnie Monin, and Hienie Mathesius. He quarreled with all of them to the end of his days and did everything in his power to keep them ignorant of his methods.

One time, twenty odd years ago, he sent me one of his choicest stags to breed. He crated and shipped the stag himself and requested me when returning his shipping crate to send it from a different location in order that his help would not know where the stag had gone. So I drove 50 miles to another express office in order to keep Mr. Murphy’s employees in the dark as to the stag’s whereabouts.Incidentally, the stag was a great disappointment to me. He had a tremendous body, but short hackle and a short tail with a great long curved bill like some of those seashore birds you see. I called him “the curlew” after one of them. He lived only one year before he developed a huge canker on his neck and died. But before he checked out, I bred him in late August to a fine spangled Whitehackle hen that belonged to a friend of mine. Only four chicks came from the mating, two stags and two pullets, which on the day hatched I placed in a cole hod and took over to my friend, since I did not want to be bothered with late hatched chicks. But these four little “Curlews” made history. All four were bred extensively for years. One pullet when mated to a Blonde Rollan cock produced stags that won the Lally for Joe Morgan over Sweater McGinnis when Sweater was at his peak. Other offspring from these Curlews won many matches in the Claymore for me and more offspring were big winners throughout New England for years.
All of the original blood is gone now except for mere traces here and there, but it goes to show the genius of that master breeder, Thomas W. Murphy.

I wish it were possible to record a more complete account of the great Murphy Whitehackles, but so many of his close friends have gone-Walter Kelso, John Madigan, Messrs. Hatch, Flaherty, and Story. Most of all Nick Downes who probably had more real knowledge of the fowl than anyone. Mr. Murphy confided in no one, least of all his employees. All chicks were hatched in an incubator in his basement for which he used to remove the day old chicks, take them in a tray to his little room in the house where he had a roll top desk. There he would toe mark them himself, cauterizing the hole with barbershop caustic on the end of a match, enter the record in a little black book which he carried in his inside coat pocket and which no one, No ONE, ever saw. The world is poorer from Mr. Murphy not sharing his genius with the rest of us.

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