LEWIS ROYCE - Biography

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This biography appears on page 650 in History of Racine and Kenosha Counties, Wisconsin...
published by the Western Historical Co.: 1879.


LEWIS ROYCE, lawyer, Burlington; born in Williamstown, Orange Co., Vt.,
April 9, 1804; he came with his parents to Northfield, Vt., in winter of
1806, and when he was 9 years of age, his father, Nathan Royce, died, in
Northfield; he was then sent to Samuel Adams, a farmer in Northfield to
learn farming, who, having bought land in Williamstown, within one mile
of where he was raised, took him back there, where he remained till he
was 16 years old; while he was there, he went to school two winters,
1813 and 1814, and had to work the farm in the summer; all the education
he ever received was during this period, and he relates how he used to
rise early in the morning and study his lessons till the family were up,
and he had to begin his day's work; when he was 17 years old, he was
appointed a teacher in a district school in Northfield, where he taught
four months with good success, then, went back to farming; he afterward
taught two winters the same school, working the farm every summer
season; when not quite 19 years old, be went to St. Lawrence Co., N. Y.,
and stayed there two years; in 1826 he commenced the study of law in the
office of Upham & Cass, in Montpelier, Vt., and studied for three years,
with the exception of the seasons for school. which he taught every
season; in 1829, he was admitted to the bar as an attorney, in
Montpelier, and at once began practicing in Washington, Orange Co. and
Brandon, Rutland Co., Vt., till fall of 1836, then came to Genesee Co.,
York State, and stayed there till 1837, and, in August of that year,
reached Burlington, and built a log cabin near where the W. U. R. R.
depot now stands; he took up 160 acres Government land, fenced more than
half of it, and broke over one hundred acres; he was then taken sick,
sold out this land, and moved into the village; he bought more land, and
built the large stone residence now occupied by the Sisters of Mercy,
adjoining St. Mary's Catholic Church; sold that in 1846, and built the
residence he now occupies. He married, in 1837, in Buffalo, N. Y., Mary
Judd, of Vermont; had two children- Glacius and Iona. He was elected in
1851, District Attorney for Racine Co., which he held for five years;
was also elected Justice of the Peace in 1843, the first ever elected by
a vote of the people, and was also the first Supervisor ever elected in
that way. He has now been upward of fifty years practicing law, and is
as hale and hearty yet as the average man, with a clear memory and good
eyesight. His son, Glacius, enlisted in Chicago, in the McClellan
Dragoons, and was killed at the battle of Williamsbur Va.