Humphrey

trial of Harry K. Thaw ; and on Mar. 19, 1908,
with time off for good behavior, he was released.
Two days later he sailed for England on the
Litsitania. He was in reduced circumstances,
but former friends and clients, hearing that he
was going to write his memoirs, saved his re-
maining years from poverty. Except for a trip
round the world in 1911, he lived obscurely in
London with his two sisters and died in the
Baker Street flat in 1926. His body, attended
only by a trust company's representative, was
buried in Salem Field Cemetery, Queens. A sup-
posititious son appeared to contest the will, which
was rumored to dispose of an estate worth $ir
250,000. When it was learned that the dead man
left only $51,000, the son's lawyer threw up the
case, and the young man returned to his Port-
land, Me., milk route.

[The New York newspapers are the chief source of
information. Arthur Train, "The Fall of Hummel,"
Cosmopolitan Mag., May and June 1908, is authoritative.
A few details in this account have been taken from
Who's Who in America, 1906-07; Daily Telegraph
(London), Jan. 25, 1926; Boston and New York city
directories.] Q^ jj Q^

HUMPHREY, HEMAN (Mar. 26,
3, 1861), Congregational clergyman, president
of Amherst College, was born in West Sims-
bury, now Canton, Hartford County, Conn., the
son of Solomon and Hannah (Brown) Humph-
rey, and a descendant of Michael Humphrey who
was living in Simsbury, Conn., in 1643. Heman
attended the district schools and received also
some excellent private instruction until his seven-
teenth year, when he in turn, for several years,
became a successful teacher in the schools of his
neighborhood during the winters. In the sum-
mers he worked as a farm hand. This latter oc-
cupation brought him into the employ and to the
notice of Governor Treadwell of Connecticut,
who placed his well-stocked library at the service
of his young helper. Learning by teaching and
by hard study directed by friends, Humphrey
prepared himself for college and in his twenty-
fifth year was received by Yale College into its
junior class, with which he graduated in 1805.
He immediately joined a class in theology con-
ducted by the Rev. Asahel Hooker of Goshen,
Conn., and in 1806 received a license to preach
from the Litchfield North Association. "With
my license in my pocket/' he wrote later, "I pur-
chased a horse, saddle, bridle and portmanteau,
and was ready to enter the field, without know-
ing or conjecturing in what corner of it I was to
find employ." He found his "corner" in Fair-
field, Conn., where he was ordained in March
1807, and on Apr. 20, 1808, married Sophia, the
daughter of Noah Porter [g.s/.] of Farmingtom

Humphrey

Before his ordination a conflict with his pro-
spective parishioners had arisen which illustrates
his characteristic firmness and devotion. While
he was preaching at Fairfield as a candidate, he
found the Half-Way Covenant sanctioned by the
church. Humphrey declared that he found no
warrant in Scripture for this institution, and that
in no case could he administer the ordinance of
baptism to children neither of whose parents was
in full communion with the church. This uncom-
promising attitude was unanimously, though re-
luctantly, approved by the church and Humphrey
entered upon a most successful pastorate of ten
years1 duration. It was in the third year of this
term (1810) that he began his pioneer preaching
in support of temperance, which soon took on the
more radical form of an appeal for total absti-
nence. His position in this matter was one both
delicate and bold for a minister to take at a time
when indulgence in stimulants, even by his broth-
ers in the cloth, was widespread and often un-
restrained. In 1813 with Rev. R. R. Swan and
Rev. William Bonney he published Intemper-
ance: an Address to the Churches and Congre-
gations of the Western District of Fairfield. A
later address, Parallel Between Intemperance
and the Slave Trade (1828) attracted wide at-
tention. In 1817 Humphrey was called to a more
important pastorate at Pittsfield, Mass., where in
a period of six years he succeeded in closing a
schism which had bade fair to destroy the influ-
ence of the church.

It was his record of firm orthodoxy in these
two charges, his leadership in the cause of tem-
perance, and more particularly his conspicuous
success with the younger members of his con-
gregations that led the trustees of the Charitable
Collegiate Institution (Amherst College) to call
him to the presidency in 1823. The institution
had been founded two years before by the good
people of the Connecticut Valley, in "the con-
viction that the education of pious young men of
the first talents is the most sure method of re-
lieving our brethren, by civilizing and evangeliz-
ing the world." Humphrey's presidency lasted
twenty-two years and in that time 765 young
men graduated, of whom over 400 entered the
ministry. In 1830 he fottnded in the college the
Antivenenean Society, the members of which
promised to refrain from the use of alcoholic
liquors, opium, and tobacco; and during his in-
cumbency more than eighty per cent of the stu-
dents took this pledge. The ideal benefits to be
hoped for as the result of education were thus set
out in his inaugural address: "It is edttcation
that pours light into the tinderstanding, lays tip
its golden treasures in the memory, softens the

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