Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 05.djvu/457

 HUMPHREYS

HUNEKER

ordered by congress in 1794, and wlien they were adopted, sent the moulds and drafts on to the ports wliere they were to be built. These vessels were the Chesapeake, Constitution, Congress, Con- stellation, President and United States. He was appointed naval constructor with a salary of $2000 a year, June 28, 1794, to take effect from May 1, 1794, and held this office until Oct. 26, 1806. He was presented with a cane made from a part of the frigate Constitution by Josiah Barker, naval constructor at Boston, jMass., in 1837. He was married to Mar\' Davids, of Phila- delphia. He died at Reading, Pa., Jan. 12, 1838.

HUMPHREYS, Milton Wylie, educator, was born in Greenbrier, Ya., Sept. 1.5, 1844; son of Andrew Cavet and Mary McQuain (Hefner) Humphreys ; grandson of Robert Humphreys and of Daniel Hefner, and a descendant of Samuel Humphi-eys, who emigrated to Pennsylvania from Ireland before the Revolution, and finally settled in Greenbrier county, Va., and of Jacob Hefner, a native of Germany, who died of wounds received in the Revolutionary war. He was a student at Washington college, Lexington, Ya., but left to enter the Confederate army in 1861, serving in the artillery. He returned to the college after the war, and was graduated A.M. with first honors in 1869, when he delivered the oration in honor of the society of the Cincinnati. He was adjunct professor of Latin and Greek at the uni- versity, 1866-70 ; professor of ancient languages, 1870-75 ; professor of Greek at Yanderbilt univer- sity, 1875-83 ; of ancient languages at the Univer- sity of Texas, 1883-87, and in 1887 became pro- fessor of Greek in the University of Yirginia. He received the degree of Ph.D. from Leipzig university in 1874 and that of LL.D. from Yan- derbilt university in 1883. He was elected a mem- ber and president of the American Philological association in 1882 ; and was editor for the United States and Canada of the Revue des Revues and correspondent of the Philologisclie Wockensclirift. He published editions of the Clouds of Aristoph- anes, and the Antigone of Sophocles and many articles in periodicals at home and abroad.

HUnPHREYS, Samuel, shipbuilder, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 23, 1778; son of Joshua and Mary (Davids) Humplireys. He was sent to Georgia in 1796 to make and carry out conti'acts for supplying live oak ship lumber, which the government had decided to collect in great quantities to be used in building a large navy. He also directed the storing of the wood at the various navy yards of the United States. He was appointed naval constructor of the U.S. navy, April 17, 1813, and chief naval constructor, Nov. 25, 1826. In 1824 he refused an offer from the Russian government, tendered by their am- bassador, Mr. Izakoff, as naval constructor, to

which was attached a salary of $50,000 a year, a town and country residence and a retinue of serv- ants, which were to be maintained by tlie czar. His refusal was on the grounds that, be his merit great or small, he owed it to his own country. He removed to Georgetown, D.C., in 1829, and held the office of naval constructor until his death. He was married in 1808, to Letitia, daughter of Andrew and Jane (Murray) Atkinson, of Augusta, Ga. He died in Georgetown. D.C., Aug. 16, 1846.

HUnPHREVS, West Hughes, jurist, was born in Montgomery county, Tenn., Aug. 5, 1806 ; son of Parry W. Humphreys, judge of tlie su- perior court, 1807-09, and of the circuit court of Tennessee, 1809-13 and 1818-36 ; a representative in the 13th congress, 1813-15 ; narrowly defeated as Whig candidate for U.S. senate in 1817, and later a banker in Hernando, Miss., where he died, Jan. 19, 1839. West Hughes Humphreys was educated at Transjdvania university, and became a lawyer in 1828. He represented his county in the state legislature for sevei-al terms ; was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1834 ; attorney-general of the state in 1839, and reporter of the state supreme court, 1839-51. President Pierce appointed him U.S. district judge, and he held the office, 185.3-61, and held the same relative office under the Conferlerate States government, 1861-65. He published the reports of the supreme court of Tennessee, 1839- 51. He died in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 5, 1883.

HUMPHREYS, Willard Cunningham, edu- cator, was born in New York city, June 15, 1867 ; son of A. Willard and Mary (Cunningham) Humphreys, and grandson of Asahel Jewell and Elizabeth (Hinds) Humphreys, of Winchester, N.H., and of John and Caroline (Willey) Cun- ningham, of Boston, Mass. He was graduated from Columbia college, A.B., 1888, A.M., 1889, and studied at Columbia Law school, the School of Political Science, and the New York University Medical school, receiving the degree of Ph.D. from Columbia and the degree of M.D. from the New York University Medical school in 1890. He was admitted to the bar in 1892, was instruct- or in Latin in Princeton university, 1892-94, and was made professor of German in 1894. He was secretary of the New York Medico-Legal society, associate editor of the Medico-Legal Journal, and editor of Selections from Quintus Curtius (1896); Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans (1898).

HUNEKER, James Gibbons, journalist, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 31, 1859 ; son of John and Mary (Gibbons) Huneker, and of Irish and Hungarian ancestrj'. He attended Roth's Military academy, 1866-74, and the Law- academy of Philadelphia, 1875-78. and then studied piano playing at the Paris Conservatoire