Huntington

to practise in Norwich, Conn. In May 1765 he
represented Norwich in the General Assembly
of the colony of Connecticut. Ten years later he
was again chosen to represent Norwich, but
when the General Assembly convened and the
votes of the freemen had been counted, it was
found that he had been elected an Assistant—an
office to which he had been nominated in 1773
and 1774. Accordingly he left the General As-
sembly and took his seat in the upper house of
the legislature. He was annually reflected an
Assistant until 1784. During the Revolution he
served on many committees in Connecticut In
May 1775 the General Assembly appointed him
a member of a committee for the defense of the
colony. In July 1777 he was named by the gov-
ernor and council one of a committee to meet
the representatives from Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York at
Springfield to consult on the state of the cur-
rency. In October 1777 he was named by the
General Assembly a member of a committee to
consult with the Corporation of Yale College
in regard to putting "the education of youth in
that important seminary . . . upon a more ex-
tensive plan of usefulness*' (The Public Records
of the State of Connecticut, I, 424). He was ac-
tive in the judicial as well as in the legislative
affairs of the colony and state. In 1765 he was
appointed King's Attorney for Connecticut, and
from 1765 to 1775 he was a justice of the peace
for New London County. In 1773 he was ap-
pointed a judge of the superior courts of the col-
ony and was reappointed annually to that office.
In 1784 he was appointed chief justice of the su-
perior court of Connecticut

Huntington represented Connecticut in the
Continental Congress from 1775 until 1784. In
that body he served on many committees, signed
the Declaration of Independence, and in Sep-
tember 1779 was chosen president of the Con-
gress to succeed John Jay, who had just been
appointed minister plenipotentiary to negotiate
a treaty between the United States and Spain.
He held the office until July 1781, when the
state of his health forced him to resign and to
request a leave of absence; but in 1783 he was
again in attendance at Philadelphia. In 1785
he was chosen lieutenant-governor of Connecti-
cut and in the year following he was made gov-
ernor, an office to which he was reflected an-
nually for eleven years. He approved of the con-
stitution drafted by the federal convention in
1787 and gave it his hearty support in Connec-
ticut; and when the federal government was in-
stituted in 1789 he received two of the votes cast
by the electors for the first president and vice-

Huntington

president of the United States. Huntington
married Martha Devotion, the daughter of the
Rev. Ebenezer Devotion of Windham, in 1761.
From this marriage there were no children, and
Huntington took into his home two children of
his brother Joseph who had married the sister oŁ
his wife. One of these was Samuel Huntington,
1765-1817 \_q.v.*]. Huntington died at Norwich
at the age of sixty-four.

vvwk Kecords °f *ke Colony of Conn., vols.
XII-XV (1881-90) ; The Pub. Records of the State
of Conn. (3 vols., 1894-1922) ; The Huntington Fam-
ily in America (1915) »* Jos. Strong, A Sermon Deliv-
ered at the Funeral of His Excellency Samuel /funf-
tngton (1796); S. D. Huntington, "Samuel Hunting-
ton," the Conn. Mag.t May-June 1900 ; Frances M.
CauQcins, Hist, of Norwich, Conn, (1845).]

DeF.V-S.

HUNTINGTON, SAMUEL (Oct. 4, 1765-
June 8, 1817), governor of Ohio, was bom at
Coventry, Conn. His father was Joseph Hunt-
ington, a distinguished minister of liberal
views ; his mother was Hannah, daughter of the
Rev. Ebenezer Devotion. As a boy he was
adopted by his uncle, Samuel Huntington [<f.v.],
signer of the Declaration of Independence and
governor of Connecticut. After attending Dart-
mouth until the end of his junior year, he en-
tered Yale, graduating at twenty (1785), and
was sent abroad by his uncle for the "grand
tour." On his return to Connecticut he studied
law and was admitted to the bar in 1793. He had
married, on Dec. 20, 1791, Hannah Huntington,
a distant cousin. Huntington had political aspi-
rations but he found the times "out of joint" in
Connecticut, for he was not in sympathy with
the Federalist hierarchy. In 1800 he made a
trip on horseback to Ohio. Determined on set-
tling there, he gained admission to the bar and
returned to bring his family west in a covered
wagon. His first few years in Ohio were spent
in the village of Cleveland, but believing the lo-
cation tmhealthful, he moved to Painesville,
where he lived until his death,

He immediately identified himself with the
politics of the Northwest Territory and was fa-
vored by Governor St. Clair with minor ap-
pointments. Foreseeing that Ohio would short-
ly become a state, he chose to support the cause
of statehood in opposition to St Clair. He first
came into prominence In the constitutional con-
vention of 1802, where he acted in harmony with
the "Chillicothe Junto" which controlled that
body. He was elected to the Senate of the first
General Assembly and was chosen speaker, bat
in April 1803 he was appointed to the state su-
preme court The local Jeffersooian party,
which had achieved statehood for Ohio, was
divided prior to the War of 1812 into liberal

419