Edward William Cornelius Humphrey

Education

Humphrey graduated in 1864 from Centre College, where he attended classes in the Old Centre building, now on the National Register of Historic Places due to its being the oldest academic building west of the Alleghenies. His graduation from Centre was prior to Old Centre's temporary use as an American Civil War hospital. After graduating from Centre, he received an honorary A.M. degree from Amherst College. Subsequently, he studied law at the University of Louisville and at Harvard, class of 1866.

Law practice

Edward William Cornelius Humphrey studied law, practiced law, and shared his knowledge of law in many circles of influence, as described in the Louisville Courier-Journal death notice "Death's Summons Came in Sleep to Mr. Humphrey: His Passing Removes Esteemed Citizen, Scholar and Leader of Presbyterians" and the subsequent article "Resolutions on the Death of E.W.C. Humphrey by the Louisville Bar Association." During his long career on the Board of Trustees of Centre College, he was in charge of the school's extensive property interests. He was also a trustee of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and served on the committee which united the North and South Presbyterian Kentucky seminaries and colleges.

As E.W.C.'s father Rev. Edward Porter Humphrey's wife Catherine Cornelia Prather Humphrey had died in child birth, followed shortly after in death by her new-born daughter, E.W.C. was their only surviving child. His father subsequently married Martha Pope, and through his father's second marriage, Edward William Cornelius Humphrey gained a younger half-brother who became Louisville, Kentucky chancellery court (a court of equity) Chancellor, Judge Alexander Pope Humphrey (1848–1928). Judge E.W.C Humphrey's son, named Edward Porter Humphrey (1873–1955) after his grandfather Edward Porter Humphrey, eventually became a member of the law firm headed by E.W.C.'s, (a.k.a. Edward William Cornelius Humphrey's) half-brother, Judge A. Pope Humphrey.

In 1874 E.W.C. was chosen director and treasurer of the Louisville Law Library Company, a position for which he was re-elected for forty-four successive terms, and his "service to the bar through that institution were invaluable." Edward William Cornelius Humphrey's own law practice was with the firm of Humphrey & Davie of Louisville. Upon the death of his law partner, George M. Davie, a large group of members of the Louisville Bar Association, with nearly every lawyer in the city attending, gathered in the court room of the Court of Common Pleas to memorialize Davie, and Humphrey led the tribute. Upon the death of Edward William Cornelius Humphrey in 1917, the Louisville Courier-Journal published an article regarding the event in which the Louisville Bar Association issued a resolution of respect, citing him as "one of its oldest and most revered members." Since 1934 and an act of the Kentucky General Assembly, the Louisville Bar Association was integrated into the Kentucky Bar Association.

Presbyterianism

Edward William Cornelius's drafted creed proposal was accepted by vote of the General Assembly of which he was a voting member. He was one of six Presbyterians charged with drafting the proposal regarding creed revision. The other five members of the committee were ordained Presbyterian ministers, one of whom was the General Assembly moderator.

E.W.C. Humphrey was an active Presbyterian elder, legal advisor to a large body of Presbyterian associations based in Louisville, Kentucky and a voting participant on a strategic creed revision enacted at the National Presbyterian General Assembly of 1901. At an 1895 meeting of the congregation of the College Street Presbyterian Church of Louisville, elders of the church E.W.C. Humphrey and Thomas Speed, a United States Representative from Kentucky were designated to notify the Presbytery of the members' vote to accept the resignation of the church minister. In Presbyterianism church governance involves levels of decision-making, from church member, to Presbyterian elder, to Presbyterian session, to Presbyterian synod, to representatives to the Presbyterian General Assembly, where final votes on Presbyterian Church creed and Presbyterian polity are decided.

In 1897, in accordance with Presbyterian polity a meeting of Presbyterian elders and ministers was held at Edward William Cornelius's home in Louisville, Kentucky to begin to organize and discuss the merging of the northern Presbyterian church and the southern Presbyterian church in the United States.

In 1901, an overflow crowd gathered to hear discussions on Presbyterian creed revision which was held at Princeton Theological Seminary. At this meeting E.W.C. Humphrey and Dr. William McKibben presented the minority report. President Benjamin Harrison was a member of the creed revision committee and is shown in a photograph of the group along with E.W.C. Humphrey and the Rev. Dr. John DeWitt, Professor of Theology at the Princeton Seminary and author of the article in the illustrated newspaper Christian Work in which the group photograph of the revision committee first appeared. Shown in the photograph is Benjamin Harrison, who served as the 23rd President of the United States(1889–1893) and who was also a Presbyterian church leader. President Harrison died on March 13, 1901 of influenza before the final vote on creed revision took place.

On October 15, 1902 the Centenary Jubilee of Kentucky Presbyterians was the cause for reflection and celebration in Lexington, Kentucky of the history of the church formed in the Kentucky wilderness of 1802. The Jubilee was a day-long event, and plans were described in detail the previous month in a half-page article of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Second on the program was "A Historical Sketch of the Synod" by Hon. E.W.C. Humphrey.

E. W. C. Humphrey, as a Presbyterian Church Elder from Louisville, was appointed by the Presbyterian General Assembly to serve on the national committee which met in Philadelphia on February 5, 1902 to consider creed revision. He was selected as the only lay member of a sub-committee composed of himself and five ordained Presbyterian ministers, namely the General Assembly moderator Rev. Dr. Minton of San Francisco, Rev. D. W. Moffat of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Rev. S. J. Nichols, Rev. D. W. Fisher, and Rev. William McKibben. The group of six was charged with preparing the statement for changes to be presented to the General Assembly the following May in New York. The Fort Wayne Sentinel reported, "Final action, it is expected, will also be taken on the questions of a brief statement from Presbyterian doctrine and a declaratory statement concerning debatable points in the Confession of Faith."

On the final vote of the Presbyterian General Assembly, all of the committee's creed changes were accepted except those not recommended by Edward William Cornelius Humphrey and Rev. Dr. William McKibben, who led the dissenting opinion on those changes. The decision to accept most of the proposed changes was headlined in newspapers across the United States. On the front page of the Davenport Daily Republican of Davenport, Iowa, the decision to make the creed more clear was the major headline of the morning edition. The Louisville Courier-Journal in its tribute to him in April 1917 stated, "He was a member of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. at several of its successive annual sessions, when it had under consideration and finally adopted, the revision of the Confession of Faith." The Courier-Journal added that "he served on the Revision Committee with Mr. Justice John M. Harlan, of the United States Supreme Court. . . ." and that "He was also, for many years and until the time of his death, a member of the Pan Presbyterian Council, a council of representatives of all the Presbyterian churches of the world, which at stated periods holds its sessions in different parts of the globe, many of which sessions Mr. Humphrey attended."

Biography and family

He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Reverend Doctor Edward Porter Humphrey (1809–1887), a noted Presbyterian minister, and Catherine Cornelia Prather Humphrey (1816–1844).

He was the grandson of Congregationalist minister Heman Humphrey, an author of theological treatises and the second president of Amherst College. His mother Catherine, whose portrait as a young girl was painted by the esteemed portrait painter Matthew Harris Jouett, died shortly after Edward's birth, and afterward his father Rev. Edward Porter Humphrey married Martha Anne Fontaine Pope.

E.W.C.Humphrey (Edward William Cornelius Humphrey) married his second wife Jessamine Barkley (1846–1905), of Danville, Kentucky on October 22, 1867, and their children were Catherine Prather Humphrey Hobson (1869–1936), newspaper editor Lewis Craig Humphrey (1875–1927), Dr. Heman Humphrey (1880–1945) (a physician and namesake of Amherst President Heman Humphrey) and bookmobile advocate/librarian Mary Brown Humphrey (1885–1980). He was the half-brother of Federal Circuit Court Judge Alexander Pope Humphrey (1848–1928). Edward William Cornelius Humphrey's son Edward Porter Humphrey (1873–1955) eventually became a member of the law firm headed by Judge A. (Alexander) Pope Humphrey. E.W.C. Humphrey was the father of Lewis Craig Humphrey, editor of the Louisville Evening Post and the Louisville Herald, and later associate editor of the Louisville Herald-Post. E.W.C. was the grandfather of Edward Humphrey Reinhard

and of Tennessee Valley Authority chief physician Dr. Edward Cornelius Humphrey. He was the great-grandfather of economist Thomas MacGillivray Humphrey and of Barbara Morgan Meade, co-founder and co-owner of Politics and Prose Book Store in Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C.

Edward William Cornelius Humphrey was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery, the Louisville garden cemetery for which his father, the Reverend Doctor Edward Porter Humphrey had given the original dedicatory address. Cave Hill Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.