Judge Humphrey was born on a farm in Logan county, Arkansas, December 20, 1846, the son of Hon. Charles Humphrey representative in the legislature from Scott county in 1840. When the late civil war commenced he was but fourteen yew old, and had, up to that time, enjoyed but very limited facilities to acquire an education, all of his time after he was old enough to go to school being required on the farm. At the age of seventeen he volunteered his services as a soldier in the Confederate army, and served as such near two years, being discharged a few months before the surrender of the Confederate armies, because of physical disability occasioned by exposure in the army. At the close of the war he settled at Galla Rock in Pope county, and bent every energy and resource of his nature to acquire an education under very uninviting circumstances. He attended a common school five months in 1865, and advanced very rapidly; after this, necessity forced him to become his own tutor. He was soon able to teach a common neighborhood school, and in this way defrayed expenses and sustained himself; He read medicine under Doctors Talbot and Leith at Galla Rock, near two years, and then attended the Missouri Medical College in St. Louis two sessions, and graduated from that institution in 1869. Doctor Humphry practiced medicine about three years, and then abandoned that profession because he found it uncongenial to his taste, and removed to Judsonia and opened a drug store, which in turn grew monotonous, and he entered the political arena in 1874, and was elected to the legislature from White county, and did good service in the memorable session of 1874—5. Prominent in his legislative record was the bill introduced by him asserting and seeking to enforce the assumed right of the State to tax railroad lands, which became a law, and was very warmly and ably contested in the supreme court of the State and of the United States, the litigation resulting in sustaining the act. Whilst a member of the house he was often called to the chair to preside as speaker pro tem., and discharged the duties imposed by that office with marked ability.

In 1876 he returned to Logan, his native county, and read law two years privately at his own home, and was admitted to the bar, but was not satisfied with his qualifications, and entered the post-graduate class of the law department of the University of Louisville, and at the end of one year graduated in that institution with the degree of doctor of laws, and was soon after admitted to the bar of the supreme court of the State. In 1879 he was appointed probate and county judge of Logan county, to fill an unexpired term of one year, and in 1880 was elected to that office by the people on the democratic ticket. In 1881-2 he owned and edited the Paris Express in the interest of the democratic party and the people. Judge Humphry has attained high masonic honors and promotion from the humblest position in subordinate lodges to the most worshipful grand master of the State. In the fall of 1886 he removed to Fort Smith, where he continues his professional pursuits.