David Campbell Humphreys

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David Campbell Humphreys (November 9, 1817 – July 1879) was an Alabama lawyer, planter, and politician who became a federal judge in Washington, D.C. He served in the Alabama House of Representatives in 1843, 1849, 1853, and 1868, and he practiced law and ran a plantation in Huntsville from 1850 to 1861. During the Civil War he joined the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of colonel. In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated him to fill the seat vacated by George P. Fisher on the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (now the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia); he was confirmed and began service in May 1870, serving until his death in July 1879. In 1873 Grant nominated him for a joint seat on Alabama federal courts, but the Senate rejected the nomination as irregular. Humphreys’ Huntsville home, built in 1848, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.