Robert Wade Humphreys: Lawyer, Civic Leader, and Collector of Customs (1875–1950)

Robert Wade Humphreys, lawyer, farmer, civic leader, and collector of customs, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 30, 1875. He was the son of Benjamin F. Humphreys and Edna Virginia (Wade) Humphreys. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati Law School and studied under President William H. Taft who became a close family friend. Humphreys moved to San Antonio in 1912. Within a few years he was living in Liberty, Texas where he became active in civic affairs, including improvement work on the Trinity River channel. While residing in Liberty, Humphreys served as the Federal Food Administrator for Liberty County during World War I. This organization was established to ensure food supplies for the U.S. and American allies by encouraging food conservation and regulation of food distribution. Humphreys’s draft registration card listed his profession as “farming” in September 1918. By the time of the 1920 federal census, he was recorded as a lawyer in Liberty County.

Humphreys established a second residence in Galveston to accept the position of collector of customs in 1921. He was appointed to this prestigious patronage position by Republican president Warren G. Harding. While living in Ohio, Humphreys had become a friend of President Harding and later traveled with him during his presidential campaign trip to Texas in 1920. Humphreys was reappointed to the office by Republican President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 and served until 1930 when Robert Buckner Morris replaced him.

As collector of customs, Humphreys was responsible for supervising U.S. Customs operations at the largest seaport in Texas during a time when Prohibition posed many enforcement challenges. During this period, Galveston Island and the surrounding area became a distribution hub for smuggled liquor. Smuggling organizations began to use large vessels known as “motherships” to transport liquor from islands in the Caribbean to the Texas coast where they would “hover” in international waters. Small launches would then travel out to the mothership to receive the illicit alcohol and then smuggle it ashore.

In 1926 Galveston U.S. Congressman Clay Stone Briggs and Humphreys championed the building of a U.S. Department of Treasury, Marine Hospital in Galveston. Humphreys served as the master of ceremonies at the dedication and opening of this 100-bed facility in 1933. This facility was used for the treatment of disabled and ill merchant seaman and U.S. Coast Guard sailors. Eventually the Marine Hospital Service was moved from the Department of Treasury into the United States Public Health Service.

As a member of the Galveston Commercial Association, Humphreys had interests in developing the intercoastal waterway between Houston and New Orleans, the Galveston beach breakwater, and a concrete highway between Galveston and Houston. He was a former president of the Texas Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, past president of the Liberty Chamber of Commerce, and a former chamber of commerce director of both Galveston and East Texas. Humphreys was a member of Galveston’s Artillery Club and a founder and inaugural president of the Knife and Fork Club in Galveston. As an active Mason, he served as eminent commander of the San Felipe de Austin Knights Templar.

Humphreys married Geraldine Camilla Davis in Dallas on April 30, 1913. She was the daughter of George W. Davis, a Galveston attorney, and granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin Hardin, whose family was among the earliest to settle in Liberty County. She was a major donor to the Geraldine Davis Humphreys Cultural Center in Liberty. The couple had one daughter, Kalita Humphreys Burson, who became a well-known actress who died in an airplane crash in 1954. The Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas was named for her.

After suffering a stroke, Robert Wade Humphreys died on January 1, 1950, in Galveston. He was seventy-four. In Humphrey’s obituary in the Liberty Vindicator, friend P. C. Matthews recalled Humphreys’s “extensive knowledge of history” as one of his outstanding attributes.  Other friends described Humphreys as a “fine man” with a “generous heart” and “sterling qualities.” Humphreys’s remains are contained in an urn located on the north wall of Grace Episcopal Church in Galveston, Texas.