Royce grew up in Putnam County, New York. He attended public schools in the county. His parents moved to Ohio with the family when he was fifteen years old. There Royce got a job as a handyman helper to a corps of surveyors that were working in a timber area, three miles west of Oberlin, Ohio. He learned field techniques in the process, like being able to travel about without the use of a compass and not getting lost. After some time, he moved from the Oberlin area to Sandusky, Ohio and had different jobs. One was working at a horse railroad that was commissioned by the city of Sandusky. He worked in the construction and repair work of the railway, which was about twenty miles long. After a year, he moved to Adrian, Michigan. During the next three years he worked on the railroad between Adrian and Hillsdale, Michigan. He also taught school for two years. Royce later returned to Sandusky and from there went to Chicago by steamship. He got various jobs in Chicago then from 1840 - 1842. At this time, he became acquainted with William B. Ogden, Chicago's first mayor and worked with him. Royce then went to Michigan City, Indiana, and worked surveying the shore of Lake Michigan and building piers. He later returned in the summer of 1849 to Chicago and married to Sarah J. Barras, a descendant of Colonel Barras. Sarah was born in the state of New York. Royce moved from Chicago to Green Bay, Wisconsin and was employed in surveying for lumbermen. He was in charge of an exploration party which prospected for a railroad to be built west to the Wisconsin River. Royce first explored the Escanaba territory in 1855. In 1861 lumberman Nelson Ludington requested Royce to explore Escanaba for a suitable harbor for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. After doing surveying work for Ludington, he went back to his home in Green Bay. He returned to the Escanaba area in 1862 and started to lay out a town. Royce laid out the original town as it now stands and had it recorded in the county in 1864. Many additions have since been made to the original recorded plat. Royce is the pioneering resident of Escanaba and was known in the Upper Peninsula as a businessman. He held city offices of postmaster, attorney, mayor, and engineer. He eventually brought his family to the new town in 1864. Royce is considered the founder of Escanaba, Michigan. He had taken an active part in local affairs as a citizen of the city and is given the credit for the wide streets of the city he laid out. The name "Escanaba" means flat rock in the Chippewa language of the indigenous American Indians. The Escanaba River bottom contains many smooth flat rocks made that way by the currents of the river.
