moved to Newark, where he established the law firm of Armstrong & Hubbell. He was a member of the New Jersey Legislature in 1847-1848, and in 1873 was appointed by the Governor one of the Commissioners to revise the Constitution of the State. Ho. Homer E. Royce, ex-Chief-Justice of Ver mont, died in St. Albans, April 24. Judge Royce was born in Berkshire, Vt., June 14, 1820. He received an education in the district schools, sup plemented by study at St. Albans and Enosburgh Academies; began the study of law in 1842, and was admitted to the bar in 1844, and with the exception of five or six years had practised on his individual account. During his early practice Mr. Royce resided in East Berkshire, and while there won an enviable legal reputation by his successful defence of Goff, indicted for killing one Harris. In 1846 and in 1847 he was State attorney. He represented Berkshire in the Legislature, served the county as State Senator several years, and represented his State in the Thirty-fifth and Thirtysixth Congress. In 1870 he was chosen Asso ciate Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, which position he retained till 1882, when he was appointed Chief-Justice by Governor Farnham, on the death of Judge Pierpoint. To this impor tant position Judge Royce was successively elected by the legislature, resigning on account of im paired health just previous to the time set for the choice of judges by the Legislature in 1890. In 1882 the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by the University of Vermont. Judge Royce was one of the ablest jurists who ever occupied the bench in Vermont, and rendered numerous note worthy decisions which have often since been quoted. The death of Homer A. Nelson, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., which occurred April 25, has caused a vacant place in the legal profession in his native State that it will be difficult to fill. Judge Nelson was born August 31, 1829. At the age of sixteen he entered the law office of Tallman & Dean, of Poughkeepsie; the latter after ward becoming one of the Justices of the Supreme Court. At once he began the trial of cases in the Court of the Justice of the Peace; and his tact, ready wit, and rugged oratory soon gained him a reputa
tion as a lawyer in his county. In 1855, when but twenty-six years of age, he was elected County Judge and held that office for two terms, until 1863, when he resigned, having been in 1862 elected to Congress. On the bench he was firm and fair, and showed an ability equal to that of the older and more prominent members of the bar. In 1862 he raised the 167th N. Y. S. V., and was commissioned as its colonel; but he resigned in order to take his seat in Congress. It was while in the House of Representatives that Judge Nelson's patriotism and strength of character were clearly brought out. Although he was and always had been a Democrat, he voted and acted with those half-dozen members of his own party who joined with their political oppo nents in upholding the noble and lamented Lincoln, when he requested and obtained legislation which 1 culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation. The writer of this article has heard from the lips of the subject of this sketch, how subtle and powerful were the temptations which were offered to cause him to swerve from the course of justice to man, though he was black, which he had laid down for himself to follow; and even afterward, so great was his desire to prevent even a sus picion that he had been actuated by motives other than those which arose from his own sense of justice and right, that he refused the appoint ment of minister to Russia, which President Lin coln subsequently offered him. In 1867 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention in New York; and so marked was his ability and honesty of purpose, and his extreme popularity, that he readily received from his party the nomination for the office of Secretary of State, tp which he was elected, and to which he was two years later re-elected by the largest majority up to that time ever given to any Democrat for a State office jn New York State. By virtue of his office he was a member of vari ous State Boards, — canals, and the like, — and although he was surrounded by men such as Tweed, and exposed to constant temptation, he transacted the business of his office with a firm consciousness of right, and retired from his duties with clear hands and free from political or other entanglements. In 1881 he was, much against his own desires, nominated to represent his district in the New York Senate, and was elected by a ma jority of three hundred and eighteen in a district
