Jonathan Hunt (Vermont Representative)

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

Jonathan Hunt (August 12, 1787 – May 15, 1832) was a member of the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

and the prominent Hunt family of Vermont. He was born in Vernon

Vernon, Vermont

Vernon is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 2,141 at the 2000 census. Vernon is the home of Vermont Yankee, Vermont's only nuclear power plant.-Geography:...

, Windham County

Windham County, Vermont

Windham County is a county located in the U.S. state of Vermont. As of 2010, the population was 44,513. Its shire town is Newfane.-Geography:According to the U.S...

, Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

, and graduated from Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

, Hanover, New Hampshire

Hanover, New Hampshire

Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....

, in 1807. Afterwards, Hunt studied law and was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States, located in the southeast corner of the state, along the state line with New Hampshire. The population was 12,046 at the 2010 census...

, in 1812. He was first president of the Old Brattleboro Bank in 1821, the first bank established in Brattleboro, a position he held for years afterward. He also carried the rank of General in the Vermont militia, as had his uncle Arad Hunt.

Hunt's father, also named Jonathan

Jonathan Hunt (Vermont lieutenant Governor)

Jonathan Hunt was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, the son of Capt. Samuel Strong Hunt of Northampton and Ann Ellsworth of Windsor, Ct., and the great-great-grandson of Jonathan Hunt and his wife Mary Webster, daughter of Governor John Webster of the Connecticut Colony...

, was born in Massachusetts, and was an early pioneer and land speculator in Vermont, where he later served as Lieutenant Governor. His son Jonathan was married to Jane Maria Leavitt of Suffield, Connecticut

Suffield, Connecticut

Suffield is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It had once been within the boundaries of Massachusetts. The town is located in the Connecticut River Valley with the town of Enfield neighboring to the east. In 1900, 3,521 people lived in Suffield; and in 1910, 3,841. As of the...

, from the New England Dwight family

New England Dwight family

The New England Dwight family had many members who were military leaders, educators, jurists, authors, businessmen and clergymen.Around 1634 John Dwight came with his wife Hannah, daughter Hannah, and sons Timothy Dwight and John Dwight, from Dedham, Essex, England to North America where the town...

heavily involved in the shipping business and in the purchase of the Western Reserve. Congressman Hunt and his wife were parents of three preeminent figures in American art: the painter William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt , American painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont to Jane Maria Hunt and Hon. Jonathan Hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in American art...

; the architect Richard Morris Hunt

Richard Morris Hunt

Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...

; and the early photographer and New York attorney Leavitt Hunt

Leavitt Hunt

Col. Leavitt Hunt was a Harvard-educated attorney and photography pioneer who was one of the first people to photograph the Middle East...

.

Hunt served as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives

Vermont House of Representatives

The Vermont House of Representatives is the lower house of the Vermont General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Vermont. The House comprises 150 members. Vermont legislative districting divides representing districts into 66 single-member districts and 42 two-member...

1811, 1816, 1817, and 1824. He was elected as an Adams candidate to the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

from 1827 to 1832 (the Twentieth, as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses).

The Congressman was a lifelong friend of statesman and orator Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...

. The brick home that Hunt had built in Brattleboro, later known as the Colonel Hooker home, was the first brick home built in town.

A graduate of Dartmouth, Jonathan Hunt served as a trustee of Vermont's Middlebury College

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...

, where Hunt family members had been early benefactors.

He died in Washington D.C. while still in office. At his death this son of early Vermont pioneers and land speculators left an estate valued in excess of $150,000. The Congressman was buried in the family plot in the Old Cemetery on the Hill in Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, Vermont

.

Following Hunt's death, his wife Jane took their four children to Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

for an extended Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

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. Three of Congressman Hunt's children returned to America. The fourth, Congressman Hunt's namesake son Jonathan, remained in Paris, where he studied medicine at the University of Paris

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

and subsequently practiced medicine until his early death, a suicide in 1874. (Jonathan Hunt's son William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt , American painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont to Jane Maria Hunt and Hon. Jonathan Hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in American art...

also committed suicide, at the Isles of Shoals

Isles of Shoals

The Isles of Shoals are a group of small islands and tidal ledges situated approximately off the east coast of the United States, straddling the border of the states of New Hampshire and Maine.- History :...

in New Hampshire.)

External links

See also