Hunt

N. ¥• Times and Tribune, Mar. 4, 1858, Evening Post,
Mar. 3, 1858.] A.E.P.

HUNT, GAILLARD (Sept. 8, i862-Mar. 20,
1924), government official, historical writer,
born in New Orleans, was the seventh child and
sixth son of William Henry Hunt [g.z/.], lawyer
and Unionist, and his second wife, Elizabeth
Augusta Ridgely. His father's mother, Louisa
Gaillard, from whom he received his name, was
sister of John Gaillard [#.z>.], who long repre-
sented South Carolina in the United States Sen-
ate, and of Chancellor Theodore Gaillard. His
mother, who died when he was less than two
years old, was a grand-daughter of Chancellor
Robert R. Livingston of New York. Born of
aristocracy so complete that he never felt need
of asserting it, and brought up by a father of
character both sturdy and scrupulous and by de-
voted aunts of old-fashioned gentility, he had
always the high qualities and traditions of the
old-school gentleman, with perhaps a few of the
latter's prejudices, humorously maintained. He
was educated at the ancient Hopkins Grammar
School in New Haven, Conn,, and at the Emer-
son Institute in Washington, to which city his
father removed in 1878.

In 1882 Hunt entered the government service,
to which he devoted the remaining forty-two
years of his life, never subdued by government
routine but always looking at his duties with a
fresh, alert, independent eye. After five years
spent as a clerk in the Pension Office, he entered
in 1887 the Department of State, henceforth the
chief object of his loyal devotion, in which he
served from 1887 to 1909 and from 1917 to 1924,
while from 1909 to 1917 he was chief of the divi-
sion of manuscripts in the Library of Congress.
In the Department of State his principal service
was as chief of the passport bureau and later as
chief of the division of publications and editor*
He had an important part in the drafting of leg-
islation on citizenship and naturalization, wrote
a book of history and law on The American
Passport (1898) and a valued work on The De-
partment of State of the United States; Its His-
tory and Functions (1914), expanded from his
earlier work (1893) on the same subject, and
collaborated with James Brown Scott and David
Jayne Hill in producing the report of 1906 on
"Citizenship of the United States, Expatriation,
and Protection Abroad" (House Document 326,
59 Cong,, 2 Sess.). Parts of his work and some
of his friendships in the department led him into
historical and biographical writing. He did not
come to that work through the conventional path-
ways of academic scholarship, but supplied their
place by industrious reading, quickness of appre-

Hunt

hension, knowledge of governmental ways, and
robust common sense—brought to the work, in
short, the best fruits of the amateur spirit. His
bulkiest piece of work was the excellent edition
of The Writings of James Madison (9 vok,
1900-10), and of Volumes XVI-XXV of the
Journals of the Continental Congress (1910-22),
produced while he was at the Library of Con-
gress, where his enthusiasm and tact and wide
acquaintance brought a great increase to the col-
lections in the division of manuscripts. His
chief biographical books were The Life of James
Madison (1902), appreciative and just, and his
John C. Calhoun (1908), marked by insight and
fairness and an especially successful portrayal of
South Carolina life, character, and opinion.
How delightfully he could deal with social his-
tory was shown first in the editing of the letters
of Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith, The First Forty
Years of Washington Society (1906), but more
fully by that very entertaining book, Life in
America One Hundred Years Ago (1914).

He served usefully in committees of the Amer-
ican Historical Association, and at the time of
his death (having been a Catholic since 1901) he
was president of the American Catholic His-
torical Association, Handsome, jovial, humor-
ous, friendly in spirit, lively and original in talk,
he was a favorite in Washington society, and
had many devoted friends. He was married on
Oct 24, 1901, to Mary Goodfellow, daughter of
Maj. Henry Goodfellow, U. S. A.

[Thos. Hunt, Life of William H. Hunt (privately
printed, Brattleboro, 1922); H. Barrett Learned, in
Ann. Report of the Am. Hist. Asso* for the Year 1924
(1929), pp. 57-60; family information; personal ac-
quaintance.] jt p9 jm

HUNT, HARRIOT KEZIA (Nov. 9, 1805-
Jan. 2, 1875), pioneer woman physician and re-
former, was born in Boston, Mass., the daughter
of Joab and Kezia (Wentworth) Hunt, She
was descended from Enoch Hunt, who was ad-
mitted a freeman of Newport, R. I., m 1638* Her
father, a ship-joiner, lived in the old North-End
of Boston; Harriot and a younger sister, Sarah
Augusta, were brought up in a nautical, as well
as a deeply religious, atmosphere. The family
were greatly influenced by the Trinitarianism of
John Murray. At an early age Harriot Hunt
had a firm conviction that women shotdd haw
some useful occupation. She began to put bet
thoughts into practice by taking pupils into her
father's house in 1827. This, her first endeavor,
was moderately successful, bat in 1833, when her
sister had a long illness, she turned her attention
from teaching to medicine. Sarah Htmt was
treated by a Dr. and Mrs. Mott, both English

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