Judge Samuel F. Rice died at his residence on Madison Avenue at 8 o'clock Friday night, in the 74th year of his age,
This announcement will not go out in the nature of a surprise, but still will carry a weight of grief to the hearts of hundreds and thousands of friends who knew and loved the distinguished jurist.
He had been lingering at Death's door for some days. At times he would rally and regain his consciousness and seem better, but to the griefstricken family and patient watchers at his bed side there was no sign of permanent improvement. His death was caused by heart disease, and after the attack he gradually grew worse until his big heart forever ceased its beating.
Last spring Judge Rice had a severe stroke of paralysis. He was coming from Birmingham to Montgomery. It was a warm spring day and during the afternoon a hard rain fell. While it was raining all the windows of the coach in which the Judge was riding were closed, and before he reached this city he grew weak and faint from suffocation. After arriving here. he took a carriage and went to his residence, and in a few hours he was stricken with paralysis. For several. weeks he was critically ill and his life hung in the balance; but he finally weathered the storm and got up and about again. He never entirely recovered from that spell, but he got strong enough to partially resume his practice, and his tall manly form and bright and kindly face were again familiar on the streets and at the Supreme Court library. Some weeks ago he went to Washington on professional business. Soon after his return home he was taken with the heart trouble which closed his brilliant life.
He leaves a wife and three children. The children are a widowed daughter, Mrs. Daisy Glaze, a young son, Samuel, 11 years of age, and a little daughter, Marguerite Wiley, aged 3 years.
No man in Alabama was better known throughout the limits of the State than Samuel Farrow Rice. He was a son of Judge William Rice, who was a State Senator in South Carolina His mother was a sister of Z. P. Herndon, a noted South Carolina lawyer, another of whose sisters married Samuel Farrow, of that State. The subject of this sketch was born in Union District, South Carolina June 2, 1816, and was graduated at the South Carolina College. He read law in the office of the celebrated William C. Preston, and was licensed to practice in 1838. He opened an office in Winnsboro, but in 1838 came to this State and settled in Talladega. He at once purchased a newspaper and edited it six years. In 1840, and again in 1841, he represented Talladega county in the legislature, and in the winter of the latter year, was elected State Printer. This office he held three months and then resigned. He then devoted his time more closely to the law and was the partner at different times of Messrs. Phillip E. Pearson, John T. Morgan and Thomas D. Clark,
In 1845 he was a candidate for Congress and was defeated by Gen. Felix McConnel after a rare canvass; and two years later he was again defeated by Hon. F. W. Bowdon. In 1848 he was on the electoral ticket of Taylor and Fillmore and in 1851 was a third time defeated for Congress by Hon. Alexander White. In 1852 he settled in Montgomery as the associate of Colonel James E. Belser. In December, 1854, he was elected to the Supreme Court bench over Messrs. G. W. Stone, J. D. Phelan and J. W. Lessene. He remained in that high and responsible position four years, serving the last three years as Chief Justice. He resigned that position in 1859, and represented Montgomery county in the Legislature that year. From 1861 to 1865 he represented Montgomery and Antauga counties in the State Senate. After that time he eschewed politics, held no public position, and devoted himselfto the practice of his professions, much of the time as the partner of the late George Goldthwaite and Major Henry C. Semple, and for eighteen years prior to his death as the partner of Hon. A. A. Wiley. In personal appearance Judge Rice was commanding and attractive. He was above medium heigth, well knit and a splendid specimen of physical manhood. His head was unusually large and shapely, his eyes dark blue and restless, his complexion clear and florid, his face intellectual and handsome. Socially he was a most fascinating man, full of genius and with a ready discernment. He was the embodiment of good nature and kind heartedness, and his splendid qualities of head and of heart drew around him a large circle of friends and admirers and made him a favorite with all. He was eloquent and animated on the rostrum, and his utterances scintillated with gems of metaphor, ridicule and wit. In the forum he was astute, ready and logical, and his reputation as a finished lawyer and great advocate was deservedly widespread. He was also proficient in pencraft, and as a political writer had few equals in the State.
Judge Rice belonged to the old school of scholars and statesmen who played prominent parts in the early history of the State, whose hands and hearts were commissioned and consecrated to the great work of development through which Alabama has been brought from the gloom of the wilderness to the full measure of a splendid commonwealth. Intellectually he was from a giant mould, and the record of his long and brilliant life will ever remain a part and parcel of the State's history.

(The Weekly Advertiser
Montgomery, Alabama · January 09, 1890)