Humphreys

peake at Norfolk, the Constellation at Baltimore,
the President at New York, and the Congress at
Portsmouth, N. H. Humphreys' plans met with
some opposition even after they had been officially
adopted, and the Chesapeake was actually con-
structed on different lines and a smaller scale.
The ships designed by Humphreys became fa-
mous for their speed and for their individual ac-
complishments. Their efficiency in active serv-
ice fully satisfied the country as to the value of
his innovations, and led to a modification in the
system of naval construction in European coun-
tries. It is said that he received a number of of-
fers to give the benefit of his talents to foreign
governments, all of which he refused. The first
officially appointed naval constructor in the
United States, he continued in office until Oct.
26,1801, when he was dismissed because of lack
of further employment at the time. In 1806, he
was commissioned by the government to purchase
a site in Philadelphia to be used as "a building
yard, and Dock for seasoning Timber for the use
of the Navy of the United States." After this
was obtained he was authorized to build docks
and wharves and to make the tract ready for prac-
tical use. He took an active part in local political
affairs and was regarded as one of the most in-
fluential business men in Philadelphia. He mar-
ried Mary Davids of Philadelphia and had eleven
children; Andrew Atkinson Humphreys [q.vJ]
was his grandson.

[Humphreys' letters and documents in the possession
of the Hist. Soc. of Pa., Phila.; letters published in Pa.
Mag. of Hist, and Biog., July, Oct. 1906, in Jour. Am.
Hist,, Jan.-Feb.-Mar. 1916, and in New-England Hist,
and Gcneal. Reg., July 1870; Frederick Humphreys,
The Humphreys Family in America (1883) J Henry
Simpson, The Lives of Eminent PhUadelphians (1859) ;
E. P. Oberholtzer, Phila.: A Hist, of the City and Its
People (n.d.)» vol. I; J. T. Scharf and Thompson West-
cott, Hist, of Phila. (1884), I, 490; J. R. Spears, The
History of Our Navy (1897), vol. I; F. A. Magoun,
The Frigate Constitution and Other Historic Ships
(19*8).} J.H.F.

HUMPHREYS, MILTON WYLIE (Sept.
15, i844-Nov. 20,1928), scholar and teacher, was
born in Greenbrier County, Va. (now W. Va.).
He was a great-grandson of Andrew Hum-
phreys who emigrated from Ireland to Pennsyl-
vania about 1775, and the son of Dr. Andrew
Cavet Humphreys and Mary McQuain (Hefner)
Humphreys. Naturally an avid student, he sup-
plemented by his own efforts the woefully inade-
quate resources of the schools accessible to him,
and was finally prepared to enter Washington
College (now Washington and Lee University)
at Lexington, Va., in September 1860* No sooner
had he completed his freshman year than the col-
lege was disrupted by the Civil War. Young
Humphreys had set his heart on joining the ar-

Humphreys

tillery, and after many difficulties and delays he
was in March 1862 mustered in as a gunner in
the battery of Capt. Thomas A. Bryan, of the I3th
Virginia Light Artillery. "I became known,"
he wrote later, "as 'the first gunner of Bryan's
Battery/ a title in which I take more pride than
in any other ever bestowed upon me." Until the
end of the war he served his gun not only with
bravery and affection, but with great scientific
ingenuity; and long years after his active service
his interest in the theory of gunnery made him a
frequent and valued contributor to the United
States Journal of Artillery.

When the guns were silenced in 1865, Hum-
phreys returned to an impoverished home. While
planning to go into business for a livelihood, he
learned that Robert E. Lee had accepted the presi-
dency of Washington College. "This changed
the whole course of my life," he wrote. Lee was
his hero, in peace as well as in war. Accordingly,
after a brief period of school-teaching, he got
back to Lee's side at Lexington in the spring of
1866; and there he remained, for poverty could
not dislodge a student of such brilliant promise.
In June 1869 he was graduated with the degree
of M. A., at the head of his class.

For two sessions previous he had been assist-
ing in Latin and Greek, and upon the classics as
his special field of study his choice now became
fixed; although he had long been distracted by
the beckonings of other intellectual adventures,
and although, when a boy preparing for college,
his "aversion to the very thought of studying
Greek," he writes, "was intense," He accepted
an assistant professorship in Washington Col-
lege, and subsequently served as adjunct profes-
sor of ancient languages until June 1875. For
two sessions oŁ this tenure he was on leave of
absence in Germany for graduate study, and re-
ceived the degree of Ph.D. from Leipzig in 1874.

In September 1875 the new Vanderbilt Uni-
versity made him its first professor of Greek, and
he remained there eight years, marrying on May
3,1877, Louise Frances Garland, daughter of Dr.
Landon C. Garland [?.#.], chancellor of the uni-
versity. Still another Southern university he
helped to launch was the University of Texas;
he became in its opening year, 1883-84, professor
of Latin and Greek, and remained there until
1887 when he became professor of Greek in the
University of Virginia, This position he held for
twenty-five years, resigning in 19x2, but con-
tinuing to make his home in Charlottesville until
his death.

Physically and mentally Humphreys was cast
in a large mould. Powerful, rugged, and awk-
ward, his body never outgrew the young siotm-

377