William Rumsey

A member of the New York State Militia, he was pressed into service immediately upon the outbreak of the Civil War.

From April 19, 1861, until his discharge in October 1865, he served in four different posts: as an adjutant-general in a recruiting office in Elmira, as an adjutant with the New York Light Artillery (with which unit he was wounded), as an aide to General Averell (with the rank of colonel) and in another position in West Virginia.

Rumsey's candidacy for the Supreme Court for the Seventh District in 1880 generated considerable bitterness within the Republican Party.

In addition, several factions had grown up in the district Republican bar which had come to a tacit arrangement to rotate the nominations for election to judicial vacancies between them.

He resigned this last post in October 1901, and sat as a trial judge until his death in Rochester, New York, on January 16, 1903.