I have not seen his birth record, but by all accounts, Herbert C. Royal was born to first cousins Andrew Jackson Royal and Susan Pendexter Royal sometime in March 1866 in Danville, Maine. Danville became an "extinct town" the following year and is now part of Auburn, Maine.
The 1870 census from Auburn shows Herbert's family on lines 16–20 in the image below:
In 1880, the family was still in Auburn and had grown by several more children, as shown by lines 35–43 in the image below:
I put in a lot of time trying to find Herbert's middle name. He appeared in the Lewiston papers many times over the course of his life and appears on numerous official records, but always as "Herbert C." As I re-read his obituary, it occurred to me that my last chance to find it would probably be in the Bowdoin College yearbook, if such a thing existed way back then. It turns out that there are digital copies of the Bowdoin College Catalogue for his senior year online and that gave me the elusive "Clarence":
In 1890, Herbert graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and started practicing law. He was active in the Democrat party in the 1890s and at one point was the chairman of the Androscoggin County Democratic committee, as evidenced by this report in the The Lewiston Daily Sun in which he appeared three times:
He married Ida Jane Goodhue on 21 June 1899. The marriage record below states that Ida was working as a "ladies' tailor" at the time:
The 1900 census record below shows Herbert, Ida, and her younger sister Amy, living in Auburn at 110 Hampshire Street on lines 13–15:
That apartment building is still there as of 20 August 2022:
Herbert also won at least one election for local office, per this Lewiston Daily Sun article:
Herbert and Ida's marriage did not last long, as he left her in June 1904. This notice ran for three consecutive Thursdays in the Lewiston Daily Sun, starting on 27 February 1908:
On 25 April 1908, Ida was granted a divorce from Herbert by reason of desertion. See the bottom line of this excerpt from the 1908 Maine Divorce Records from Androscoggin County:
The divorce was also reported in the newspaper:
By 1910, it appears that Herbert had stopped practicing law and was employed as a traveling salesman. His appearance on the 1910 census is from Huntington, Virginia, where he was staying in a boarding house. See line 49 in the image below:
In December 1911, Herbert's sister, Mary Inglis, committed suicide and the ensuing newspaper article reported that he was living in Massachusetts at that time:
In 1919, his sister, Jennie Johnson, died and her obituary states that Herbert was living in Columbia, South Carolina at the time:
I haven't been able to find Herbert anywhere in the 1920 census, though.
By 1930, he was living in Auburn again. See line 47 in the image below:
Herbert died on 10 October 1932 in Lewiston, Maine. His obituary follows:
If you see any mistakes or know of information that isn't included here, please