The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

He was, says Cox, one of the most adroit scoundrels ever heard of, futile of expedients, and
without moral sense, and so always in trouble. The case is reported in one of the earlier volumes
of Howard's Practice Reports, about 1855. Seward kept the run of him for quite a time, and
the last report was a letter from Edemoin dated at Moyamensing prison, Philadelphia, Pa.
The case excited much interest, not only in legal circles, but among the people generally.
The keeper of the prison, the Governor, and the State Attorney-General felt themselves compro-
mised, and the latter appeared- at the trial on behalf of the State. All the facts as heretofore
shown were clearly elicited, and the Attorney-General maintained that the previous fraud had vitiated
the pardon, and that the culprit had of right been returned to prison as an escaped convict, etc.
The Judge took several days to consider the subject, and decided that the issue of a pardon
by the Executive was such a judicial act as did not admit of traverse. That whether well or ill-
advised, the issue of a pardon w-as an act of Executive clemency, and was such an exercise of
the supreme power as did not admit of review or traverse, and however underserved in its affect,
and however reluctant he might feel in its issue or consequences, he had no power to annul it,
and he felt himself obliged to confirm it by discharging the prisoner. The culprit, however, did
not get off, but was immediately taken on a w-rit by a sheriff of another county to answer for a
crime therein committed, and after trial and conviction was again sent back to his old quarters at
Auburn prison. The Judge's decision was never disturbed, though threatened by the Attorney-General.
In 1870 the interest of a large landed estate in Buffalo left to Mrs. Humphreys and her
two brothers by the Grosvenor estate, required his removal to Buffalo, and required his entire
attention to the close of his life, and doubtless in its many vexatious delays and embarrassments
hastened his decline. In 1885 he moved to Cambridge, Mass., to be near his son Llewellyn, at
Harvartl, and to be with his daughter, Mrs. Kendall, "at which place he died.
Judge Humphreys has been all his life a whig and republican, but at the close of the war
for the Union the cause of the administration did not meet his approval. He believed that the
north and south should at once strike hands and seek to obliterate the moral and material
wounds of the war. That our taxes should at once be reduced, the war debt funded, and that
twenty years should be given to our recuperation, north and south, before the people should be
called upon by taxation to pay the war debt. That the southern States should be rehabilitated
in the Union and our federal expenses reduced to the minimum; and in consonance with these
views he was a delegate and attended the noted "love feast" or Union Convention held at Phila-
delphia after the close of the war. These views did not meet those of the party, and he was ,
induced to offer his name as the candidate of the Democratic party as Congressional Representative
of his district. The Judge made no special effort and was defeated, though polling the largest
democratic vote ever received by any candidate of that party in his county.
Judge Humphreys was a most estimable man. In all the relations of life he might almost
be said to have been a model man. Modest and reserved, high-minded, considerate of the rights,
the wants and needs of others, kind-hearted and benevolent to a fault, he had no enemies, but
all who knew him were his friends, and he was never so happy as when engaged in some
unselfish work for the public, the poor, the distressed, or some friend. There was not a coarse
fibre in his nature, nor a coarse act or word in his life. His later days were overshadowed by
pecuniary cares and embarrassments brought about by the recklessness of others, and perhaps by
his business mistakes, so that his and his wife's last days were by no means their best days; but
no one ever called in question his integrity, his virtue or sterling worth of character.
Children:
4133. I. ]Makv Angeline,8 b. 13 June, 1841, at Cato, N. Y. married at Auburn, N. V.,
;
13 Dec, 1864, Frederick M. (son of William H. and Harriet Seward) Brown,
of Chicago, 111. IManufaLiurcr, Buffalo, N. N'. ChiUren:
671