"Prince Hal" Harvey McMurchy
|
August 21, 1926:
Sportsmen's Review *Harvey McMurchy ("Prince
Hal") Passes Away at His Home in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Word comes from Florida of the death on July 31, 1926 of one of America's best known and best liked shooters, Harvey McMurchy, formerly of Fulton, N. Y. He died at his home in the land of sunshine and flowers, Tarpon Springs, that he loved so well, and where he has spent so many happy hours since his retirement from active business, ten years ago.
The writer of these lines first met Mr. McMurchy at a live bird shoot in Kansas City thirty years ago. His friends in that famous pigeon shooting center were legion, as he was a frequent visitor at the shoots and was a first-class pigeon shot. He was equally good on targets as far back as twenty-five years or more ago, when the 98 per centers were not so numerous as now. He was a member of the famous team that toured the country in 1890, whose tour is given credit for being the forerunner of organized trapshooting. He won many honors at the traps and was a "comrade in arms" of those days of Fred Gilbert, Bill Crosby, Pop Heikes, Jim (J.A.R.) Elliott, Charley Budd of Parker Guns, Frank Parmalee and others. He won the Eastern handicap of the old Interstate Association at Philadelphia, in 1906, breaking 93x100 from 18 yards. In 1910, the year that Riley Thompson shot Cainsville, Mo., on the map by winning the Grand American with the only 100 straight, "Prince Hal" McMurchy had chalked up a 99 and looked a sure winner, till Riley came down the line to break his 100 straight in almost total darkness. That was the first time a perfect score won the Grand American Handicap. Mr. McMurchy has spent the last few years hunting and fishing around his Florida home. For the last two years, unknown probably to many of his friends, he had been in failing health, and when he could hunt and fish no more, he passed peacefully and gladly on to the "happy hunting grounds over there." He leaves a widow, Mrs. Lucia McMurchy, of the home, and she will have the heartfelt sympathy of her husband's numerous friends all over the land. Edited by Richard Hamilton |
Mr. McMurchy, "Prince Hal," as his friends of the old days liked to call him, was for 25 or 30 years connected with a gun company
(Hunter Arms Company, LC Smith) in New York State and he was one of the outstanding reasons for the gun becoming widely known. His personal popularity was great among all classes of shooters and sportsmen. He had a wide acquaintance, his territory being all of North America.