The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

clock and watch work. In the month of March, 1833. at the age of sixteen, in company with
Monroe Taylor, he left the paternal abode to seek his fortune among strangers. He adopted
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the profession of school-teaching for a few years; but, in 1841, commenced selling goods for
Monroe Taylor in Delphi, N. Y., where he continued three years, the last year having charge
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of the store and doing a large country trade; was a merchant in Phoenix, Oswego Co., N. Y.,
from the spring of 1S49 to 1852. In 1854, '55 and '56, was contractor to enlarge four sections
on the Oswego Canal, N. Y. After this he was for many years General Agent and Commercial
Traveler for J. Monroe Taylor, for whom he has designed and superintended the building of five
factories, at different times, for the manufacture of Gold Medal Saleratus, Bicarbonate of Soda,
Cream Yeast Baking Powder, and other chemicals. He is the inventor of special, valuable pro-
cesses in the manufacture of these goods, which render them so justly popular throughout
this country. He has never used ardent spirits or tobacco in any form, and, with the co-oper-
ation of his good wife, has never found it necessary to house a camphor bottle during thirty-six
years of married life.
Mr. Humphrey is deeply interested in astronomical subjects, also in the laws governing
physical phenomena, and entertains some theories which are the result of his own observations
and calculations.* Res. (1884) in Delphi. Onondaga Co., X. Y.
Children :
3483. I. George Clarence,^ b. 13 Nov., 1848, Pompey Hollow, N. Y. ; married in Delphi,
N. Y., 12 Nov., 1879, Emma C. (dau. of Archibald and Margaret Brady) Losey,
of Delphi, who was born in Pompey, N. Y. He entered Cornell University, but
was obliged to withdraw on account of ill health; is now a farmer. P. O. ad-
dress (1884) Delphi, N. Y.
34S4. II. Walter Henry,' b. 16 Feb.. 1852, Phoenix. X. Y. : died
te. 5 years.
there, 6 Sept., 1857,
3485. III. Florence Viola,' b. 11 June, 1855, Phoenix, N. Y. ; married, at Delphi, X. Y., 25
June, 1879, Oliver Leverrier (son of Oliver) Bush, of Rose Valley, X. Y. He
is a farmer. Mrs. Bush is a portrait and landscape painter; is giving instruction
in her art at Wolcott, N. Y., (1884). They reside in Rose, Wayne Co., N. Y. ChiU:
3486. i. Humphrey Leverrier,' b. 28 Nov. 18S1, Rose Valley, N. Y.
• At the age of eighteen he invented a method of finding the time of night, very nearly, without the aid of an instrument, by taking the
position of the Little Dipper, composed of seven stars in the constellation Ursa Minor. The pole-star named Polaris represents the center
of the dial, and the farthermost star in the Dipper the pointer. This pointer makes the circuit of this dial once in twenty-four hours, and
also an additional circuit from east to west once in a year, caused by the earth's annual revolution around the sun. This pointer will be
found at four quarterly periods during each year as follows: At the winter solstice, December 21st, vertically beneath the star Polaris about
nine o'clock P. M.; at the spring equinox, March 21st, horizontally east of Polaris about nme o'clock P. M.: at the summer solstice,
June 22d, vertically above Polaris about nine o'clock P. M.: at the autumnal equinox, September 21st, horizontally west of Polaris at nine
o'clock P. M. For example ; Suppose the position of the pointer on the night of July 29th was found to be above and 25 degrees west
of Polaris, what time of night would it be ? If 360 degrees 24 hours, 25 degrees= i hour and 40 minutes t 9 hours == 10 o'clock
and 40 minutes, which would be the time of night if the position of the pointer had been taken on the 22d of June instead of the jgth
of July. We therefore deduct ior the time elapsed since the last quarterly period, June 22d, two hours for each month and four minutes
for each day. because of the earth's annual circuit around the sun, or, to be more e.xaci. deduct for each day elapsed since the last
quarterly period 3 and 69-73 minutes, thus: From June 22d to July 29th is 37 days x 3 and 69-73 == u6 minutes, or 2 hours and 26 minutes,
which being subtracted from 10 o'clock and 40 minutes = 8 o'clock and 14 minutes, as the time of night July 29th. Mr. Humphrey
has several times been called up in the night to test the accuracy of his method, and has never varied more than five to fifteen mmutes
from the true time.
He is a firm believer in an open polar sea, a mild climate in the interior of our earth, and in the theory of concentric spheres,
and that all spheres are formed by the law of our great Architect from concentric rings thrown oft' from the central mass of mailer
(from which every solar system has been formed) while in a molten, plastic and gaseous state, and rapidly revolving upon their axes,
thereby exerting a centrifugal force sufiiciently strong in opposition to the law of gravity to prevent condensation to the extent of leavmg
a hollow center, as in the case of Saturn and its rings. He also believes that the location of several magnetic poles from sixty-eight to
eighty degrees north prove a vacancy of matter at what we call the pole; that the dipping of the pole-star towards the south from :
vertical point overhead, while little more than eighty-three degrees north, indicates an cyelet-slfcped 01
planet, and that explorers in that region were actually rounding over towards the axis of the earth mor<
the case if the earth was only flattened at the pole.