Hoffman

beauty and charm. She bore him three children
of whom a daughter survived him.

[Address of the Trustees of the Univ. of Md. to the
Public (1823); B. C. Steiner, Hist, of Educ. in Md.
(1894); E. F. Cordell, Univ. of Md., 1807-1907t I
(1907), 338-48; The Centennial Celebration of the
Foundation of the Univ. of Md. (1908) ; E. A. and G.
L. Duyckinck, Cyc. of Am. Lit. (ed. 1875), I, 758-60;
Md. Hist. Mag., Dec. 1906, pp. 358-62; "The Diary of

3p. 35

Robt. Gilmof," Ibid.,' Sept.-Dec. 1922; Roberdeau
Buchanan, Geneal. of the McKean Family of Pa.
(1890) ; N. Y. Tribune and the Sun (Baltimore), Nov.
,13, 1854.] F.S.P.

HOFFMAN, DAVID MURRAY (Sept. 29,
I79i-May 7, 1878), jurist, was born in New
York City, the second son of Martin and Beulah
(Murray) Hoffman. His first ancestor in Amer-
ica was another Martin Hoffman, born at Revel,
on the Gulf of Finland, who emigrated to New
York in 1657. His father was a prominent New
York merchant and auctioneer, and a brother of
Josiah Ogden Hoffman [#.#.]. Murray Hoff-
man, as he came to be known, attended Columbia
College, where he was graduated in 1809, pur-
sued the study of law, and was admitted to the
bar two years later. While the state reports tes-
tify to the extent of his practice and his breadth
of scholarship, it was not as a lawyer but as a
jurist and legal commentator that he attained
greatest distinction. In the fields of equity, mu-
nicipal law, and canon law he produced a large
number of scholarly treatises, including texts,
commentaries on practice, and digests which
were regarded as standard authorities. His ef-
forts, both as jurist and commentator, in the field
of chancery procedure and practice in New York,
were especially successful. His first volume, The
Office and Duties of Masters in Chancery and
Practice in the Masters Office, which appeared
in 1824, received the enthusiastic indorsement
of Chancellor Kent and Thomas Addis Emmet,
and revealed an extensive knowledge of English
legal history. This work was supplemented ten
years later by A Treatise upon the Practice of
the Court of Chancery (3 vols., 1834-40), in
which the author, confessing his admiration for
the work of Lord Redesdale, aimed to produce a
volume, more extensive than a mere digest, and
founded upon current judicial practice. Therein
Hoffman emphasized the obligation of resorting
to the English chancery authorities in cases not
provided for by statute or by the written rules of
the court. This inclusive interpretation of the
"common law of England" was to have a pro-
found influence upon the course of chancery
practice in New York. While looking to the Eng-
lish system for precedents, Hoffman neverthe-
less favored judicial reforms which would elimi-
nate many attendant evils. In his Provisional
Remedies of the Code of Procedure (1862), and

Hoffman

The Law and Practice as to References, and the
Powers and Duties of Referees (1875), he con-
tributed pioneer commentaries on the New York
code revision.

Hoffman's appointment in 1839 as assistant
vice-chancellor, which office he held until 1843,
was well merited. Ten years later he was made
judge of the superior court of New York City,
remaining on that bench until 1861. One of the
most important decisions which he rendered in
that capacity was in People vs. Hoym (20 How-
ard's Practice Reports, 76), where, reviewing
colonial and state legislation in relation to Sab-
bath observance, he ruled that the statutory Sab-
bath restrictions rested "upon the principle of
the preservation of good order and the public
morality and peace." In 1853, supplementing the
work of Kent in this field, Hoffman published A
Treatise upon the Estate and Rights of the Cor-
poration of the City of New York as Proprietors,
which he prefaced with a careful account of the
historical origin of the municipal institutions,
including a defense of the validity of the Mont-
gomerie Charter of 1732. As an active layman
of the Protestant Episcopal Church he devoted
much time to a study and analysis of its law,
which bore fruit in a Treatise on the Law of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States
(1850), containing a valuable survey of the prob-
lem of the Anglican episcopate in the American
colonies; Ecclesiastical Law in the State of New
York (1868) ; and The Ritual Law of the Church
(1872). Hoffman died in Flushing, N. Y. He
was twice married and was the father of nine
children. His first wife, Frances Amelia Bur-
rall, whom he married on Dec. 16,1817, was the
mother of Wickham Hoffman [tf.z'.]. She died
in 1833 and on Apr. 18, 1837, he was married to
Mary Murray Ogden.

[E. A. Hoffman, Geneal. of the Hoffman Family
(1899) 5 M. A. Hamm, Famous^ Families of N. Y.
(1902), I, 180; D. McAdam, Hist, of the Bench and
Bar of AT. Y., vol. I (1897) 5 dm. Law Rev.t Jan. 1873,
July 1878; Albany Law Jour., May 18, 1878; the
Churchman* May 18,1878; N. Y. Times, May 8, 1878.]

R.B.M.

HOFFMAN, EUGENE AUGUSTUS (Mar.
21, i829-June 17, 1902), Protestant Episcopal
clergyman, educator, was born in New York
City, the son of Samuel Verplanck Hoffman and
Glorvina Rossell Storm of Dutch, Swedish, and
Huguenot ancestry. Through his father he was
descended from Martin Hoffman who emigrated
to America from Revel, on the Gulf of Finland,
in 1657. Graduating from Rutgers College in
1847, he went to Harvard, chiefly for graduate
study in mathematics. The prevailing Unitarian-
ism of the place and period weighed heavily upon
him—he compared New England piety unfa-

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