Murdock M. McLeod (Hinds County)
State House: 1884 -1885
Secretary of State: Oct-Nov 1873
Born: c. 1847 in Ohio
Died: December 1895 in Aberdeen, MS
Attorney who served as Jackson’s city clerk. In October 1873, Governor Ridgley Powers appointed him Secretary of State, a position he resigned only weeks later. From his arrival in Jackson in the early 1870s to his death in 1895, McLeod was a prominent businessman and civic leader.
One of several sons of Mary A. Monroe McLeod (c. 1825-1910), a free woman of color in Cincinnati, Ohio, McLeod is listed with his mother and siblings on the 1850 and 1860 census. In 1870, he was listed as a lottery vendor in St. Louis, living with wife Caledonia (“Callie”). Because he is listed as “Monroe McLeod,” it is possible that Monroe was his middle name. Listed on the 1880 census in Jackson with Callie.
When Callie died in 1907, the Clarion-Ledger called her “one of the wealthiest negro women of the south.” McLeod’s mother, Mary, died in Cincinnati in 1910 and is buried in historic Union Baptist Cemetery.
Links:
Memorial on Find A Grave
Mary Monroe McLeod’s memorial on Find A Grave (includes family photo)
This page was last updated on January 8, 2026.