McMurray, after serving on the Park Police (probably a forerunner of the MDC and DCR), came on the force in 1893. In December of the very next year, while assigned to the Village Square beat (Village Square was the name of the area that we know as the intersection of Washington Street and Boylston Street where the fire station and the Brookline Bank are. The intersection of Washington Street and Harvard Street was known then as Harvard Square.), rescued a boy named Harley Chamberlain who had fallen through the ice on Leverett Pond. Chamberlain was with two other boys. His friends escaped but Chamberlain couldn't. McMurray first threw a life preserver. The ice broke some more. McMurray pulled the boy from the bottom of the pond and onto land. He successfully revived him. Then he commandeered a sleigh and brought Chamberlain to the police station.