Charles A. (Charles Albert) Murdock

Born in Massachusetts in 1841, he moved to California in 1855 with his mother, sister, and brother. Over the years he built a varied career as a printer, editor, and civic figure in San Francisco, serving in public roles that included the California House of Representatives, the Board of Education, the Civil Service Commission, and the Board of Supervisors.

He is especially remembered in literary circles for his fine printing and for editing the Pacific Unitarian. His memoir, A Backward Glance at Eighty (1921), revisits his journey west and the people and places that shaped his life, offering readers a personal window into nineteenth-century California.

Murdock died in 1928. For modern readers, his appeal lies in the mix of public history and personal memory: he writes not as a distant chronicler, but as someone who watched California grow and recorded it with care.