I found Joe in the 1900 census in New York at the address given on the passenger list a few months earlier.His grandmother Mary and an aunt and uncle are there. His birth month/age is not quite right on that census and his sister Alice is not there. After that I couldn't trace him among all the James or Joseph Murphys.I have loads of info from Alice's grand children and great grand children including her obituary which does not mention Joe though it does mention a "surviving" relative in Ireland who had already passed at that stage-1954. She died as Alice Hughes in Darien Ct. James Joseph does not feature in any of their family photos or letters that have been shared with me.
His grandmother Mary Flynn died on July 17th 1906 in New York.I don't have an obituary for her but I have a copy of her will which mentions her children but not her grandchildren.
Josephs other sister,Mary came to New York in 1907 and married Thomas Timothy Walsh and had a daughter Margaret in 1911,if I remember correctly. I have followed that family up to 1930 in the census and a possible record in the 1940 census in Manhattan. I have no death information for any of the Walshes. Alice's descendents were unable to tell me anything about the Walshes either though they did have a photo of them from 1922 .All suggesting there was little contact among the Murphy siblings.I do have one photo here in Ireland that I have had all my life of a lady sitting at a graveside,no headstone is visible but their is a small American flag on the grave of an older type with less stars on it than the current one.Does that suggest a veteran's grave?-if it is Joe's grave. I don't know whose it is except that it is a Murphy photo and looks like it dates to the late 30s or early 40s at a guess.
