CHARLES S. HUMPHRIES, county tax assessor of Baylor county, has been a resident of Seymour and vicinity for over twenty years, and is one of representative and public spirited citizens of this portion of the Lone Star state. He has led a very active career from an early age, and has seen many phases of life, as soldier, business man, farmer, and public official.
He was born in Sussex county, Virginia, July 6, 1846, a son of G. W. and Harriet (Jones) Humphries. His father was well known both as an educator and as a minister in the south. He was born in Georgia, was educated in Virginia, and soon after completing his college career married n that state . He became professor of chemistry in Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, and held that chair for some years, until his entrance into the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church South. He occupied pulpits at different places in Alabama, and died in that state shortly before the war. His wife was a native of Virginia, and during her widowhood moved to Texas and died at Seymour.
Mr. Humphries got an early start in his educational work, and during his early boyhood was a student at the Georgia Military Institute at Lexington. In 1860 he attended the Wesleyan University at Florence, Alabama, where his mother was making her home at the time. Most of his youth was passed in the state of Alabama. He was one of the boy soldiers of the Confederacy, and was only fifteen years old when he enlisted at Florence in the latter part of 1861. The regiment, however, was not organized and he did not get into service until the spring of 1862. He was a member of Company B, Thirty-fifth Alabama Regiment, and his service was largely in Mississippi. He was with Johnston’s army when it tried to relieve Vicksburg; was in the battle of Baton Rouge and in the defense of Port Hudson against the federal gunboats; was next in the campaign toward Atlanta was with Hood’s army when it fell back to Tennessee, and took part in the battles of Franklin and Nashville; thence was sent into North Carolina, and his regiment was with those that surrendered at Greensboro, that state.
After the war he returned to his mother’s home in Lauderdale county, Alabama, and a short time thereafter was married to Miss Pattie J. Vincent, which happy union has remained true and faithful for nearly forty years. Mr. Humphries came to Texas in 1868, locating first in Palo Pinto county in the western part of the state, where he engaged in the cattle business. In 1873 he acquired a farm on the old Indian reservation in Young county. He was one of the first settlers of that region, before the present county seat of Graham had been started. He lived there for about ten years, and in 1882 came to Seymour, Baylor county, which has since been his home and center of business activity. For nine years he was engaged in the mercantile business here, and then for some time he resided with his son on a farm in this county. He is a stanch Democrat, very popular throughout the county, and in 1902 he was the choice of the people of the people for the office of county tax assessor, which office he has filled to the eminent satisfaction of all. He is regarded as one of the old-timers of this section of the state, is a man of good education and broad mind and in every way a substantial and broad mind and in every way a substantial citizen. He affiliates with the Masonic and Odd Fellow orders. He and his wife have one son, Paul Humphries, a resident, of Baylor county.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 438-439.