Charles N. Murdock, born in 1836, had a grocery and country store in the Rock Bottom section of the town of Stow, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the years just after the Civil War. He resided, however, in a house rented from Rufus Temple, just over the border in the town of Hudson. In 1870, Murdock's household included his wife Mary (age 29) and two sons, ages 5 and 3. In the 1850 census (at age 14) Murdock lived in the house of Ephraim Stone with no other Murdocks present; two decades later he had amassed real estate worth $500 and personal property worth $2,000.

Murdock's store appeared in the 1872 business directory as a country store in the Rock Bottom section of Stow, but disappeared thereafter.