Jonathan Hunt (Vermont congressman)

Jonathan Hunt

Brattleboro, Vermont, home of the Hunt family
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Vermont's 1st district
In office
March 4, 1827 – May 15, 1832
Preceded by William Czar Bradley
Succeeded by Hiland Hall
Personal details
Born (1787-08-12)August 12, 1787
Vernon, Windham County, Vermont, U.S.
Died May 15, 1832(1832-05-15) (aged 44)
Washington D.C., U.S.
Resting place The Old Cemetery on the Hill
Brattleboro, Vermont
Citizenship US
Political party Adams Party
Spouse(s) Jane Maria (Leavitt) Hunt
Relations Thaddeus Leavitt
John Webster
Timothy Swan
Lewis R. Morris
Jarvis Hunt
Children William Morris Hunt
Richard Morris Hunt
Leavitt Hunt
Jonathan Hunt
Jane Maria Hunt
Parents Jonathan Hunt
Lavinia (Swan) Hunt
Alma mater Dartmouth College
Profession Lawyer
Politician
Military service
Allegiance United States United States of America
Service/branch Vermont Militia
Rank General

Jonathan Hunt (August 12, 1787 – May 15, 1832) was an American lawyer and politician from Vermont. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives for the state of Vermont and was a member of the prominent Hunt family of Vermont.

Early life

Born in Vernon, Windham County, Vermont, Hunt graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1807.[1] Afterwards, Hunt studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1812. Hunt commenced practice in Brattleboro, Vermont in 1812.[2] He was the first president of the Old Brattleboro Bank in 1821, the first bank established in Brattleboro, a position he held for years afterward.[3] He also carried the rank of General in the Vermont militia, as had his uncle Arad Hunt.[4]

Political career

Hunt held many political positions in Vermont, and served as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives in 1811, 1816, 1817, and 1824.[5] He was elected as an Adams candidate to represent Vermont's 1st congressional district in 1827. He served in the United States House of Representatives during the Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses, serving from March 4, 1827 until his death on May 15, 1832.[6]

Hunt was a lifelong friend of statesman and orator Daniel Webster.[7] The brick home that Hunt had built in Brattleboro, later known as the Colonel Hooker home,[8] was the first brick home built in town.[9]

Death

Hunt died in Washington D.C. on May 15, 1832 while still in office.[10] At his death he left an estate valued in excess of $150,000. He was buried in the family plot in the Old Cemetery on the Hill in Brattleboro, Vermont.[11]

Family life

A graduate of Dartmouth, Hunt served as a trustee of Vermont's Middlebury College, where Hunt family members[12] had been early benefactors.[13]

Bracelet with cameo portraits of four sons of Jonathan and Jane Hunt, carved by artist William Morris Hunt, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Hunt was the son of Jonathan Hunt and Lavinia (Swan) Hunt.[14] His father was born in Massachusetts and was an early pioneer and land speculator in Vermont. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont from 1794–1796. Hunt's uncle was composer and poet Timothy Swan,[15] and his aunt was married to U.S. Congressman Lewis R. Morris.[16]

Hunt married Jane Maria Leavitt of Suffield, Connecticut.[17] She was part of the New England Dwight family which was heavily involved in the shipping business and in the purchase of the Western Reserve. Jane's father, Thaddeus Leavitt, was a successful merchant whose clipper ships traded with the West Indies. He invented an early cotton gin and was one of the principal purchasers of the Western Reserve lands in Ohio.[18]

Hunt and his wife Jane had five children: artist Jane Maria Hunt, physician Jonathan Hunt, painter William Morris Hunt, architect Richard Morris Hunt and early photographer and New York attorney Leavitt Hunt.[19][20] Following Hunt's death, his wife took their children to Geneva, Paris and Rome for an extended Grand Tour that stretched into a dozen years. The Hunt children were able to study the arts in European academies and become part of an American expatriate community in Europe. Four of Hunt's children returned to America. The fifth, his namesake son Jonathan, remained in Paris, where he studied medicine at the University of Paris and subsequently practiced medicine until his early death, a suicide in 1874. (Jonathan Hunt's son William Morris Hunt also committed suicide, at the Isles of Shoals in New Hampshire.)[21] Hunt's nephew was Chicago architect Jarvis Hunt.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Art-Life of William Morris Hunt, Helen M. Knowlton, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Mass., 1899
  2. ↑ Chapman, George Thomas (1867). Sketches of the Alumni of Dartmouth College: From the First Graduation in 1771 to the Present Time, with a Brief History of the Institution. Riverside Press. p. 133.
  3. ↑ Brattleboro, Windham County, Vermont, Henry Burnham, D. Leonard, Brattleboro, 1880
  4. ↑ Annals of Brattleboro, 1681-1895, Mary Rogers Cabot, E.L. Hildreth & Co., Brattleboro, Vt., 1921
  5. ↑ Middlebury College (1917). Catalogue of Officers and Students of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont: And of Others who Have Received Degrees 1800-1915. The College. p. xii.
  6. ↑ Green, D. (1832). The Political Register, Volume 6. D. Green. p. 286.
  7. ↑ Vredenburgh Van Pel, John. Monograph of the William K Vanderbilt House. Lulu.com. p. 4.
  8. ↑ The Jonathan Hunt home was located at the corner of Main and High Streets in Brattleboro.
  9. ↑ Picturesque Brattleboro, Frank T. Pomeroy, Rudyard Kipling, Picturesque Publishing Company, Northampton, Mass., 1894
  10. ↑ Hunt, Robert (1999). Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines, Volume 5. Taylor & Francis. p. 290.
  11. ↑ Art-life of William Morris Hunt, Helen M. Knowlton, Little Brown & Co., Cambridge, 1899
  12. ↑ Congressman Hunt's uncle, Gen. Arad Hunt, donated in 1813 over 5,000 acres (20 km2) of land at Albany, Vermont, to Middlebury College. The rents from these lands were an important source of income for the then-fledgling institution.
  13. ↑ Catalogue of Officers and Students of Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont, 1800-1915, Published by the College, 1917
  14. ↑ Chapman, George Thomas (1867). Sketches of the Alumni of Dartmouth College: From the First Graduation in 1771 to the Present Time, with a Brief History of the Institution. Riverside Press. p. 133.
  15. ↑ Dwight, Benjamin Woodbridge (1874). The History of the Descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass, Volume 2. J. F. Trow & son, printers and bookbinders. p. 576.
  16. ↑ Wyman, Thomas Bellows (1863). Genealogy of the name and family of Hunt, etc. Thomas Bellows Wyman. p. 224.
  17. ↑ Hunt, Robert (1999). Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines, Volume 5. Taylor & Francis. p. 290.
  18. ↑ Dwight, Benjamin Woodbridge (1874). The History of the Descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass, Volume 1. J. F. Trow & son, printers and bookbinders. p. 408.
  19. ↑ Vermont: The Green Mountain State, Walter Hill Crockett, New York, 1921
  20. ↑ "Hunt Family Papers, 1758-1908" (PDF). Vermont Historical Society. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  21. ↑ "Hunt Family Papers, 1758-1908" (PDF). Vermont Historical Society. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
  22. ↑ "Michigan Boulevard Building". Designslinger. Retrieved May 10, 2014.
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United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
William Czar Bradley		 Member of the United States House of Representatives from Vermont's 1st district
1827-1832 		Succeeded by
Hiland Hall
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