Jonathan Hunt (Vermont Representative)

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Jonathan Hunt (August 12, 1787 - May 15, 1832) was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was born in Vernon, Windham County, Vermont; was graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1807; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1812; first president of the Old Brattleboro Bank in 1821. He also carried the rank of General in the Vermont militia, as had his uncle Arad Hunt. Hunt's father, also named Jonathan, was born in Massachusetts, but was an early pioneer and land speculator in Vermont and later served as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont. The son was married to Jane Maria Leavitt of Suffield, Connecticut, who was from an old New England family heavily involved in the mercantile business.[1] Congressman Hunt and his wife were parents of three preeminent figures in American art: the painter William Morris Hunt; the architect Richard Morris Hunt; and the photographer and attorney Leavitt Hunt.[2]

Hunt served as a member of the Vermont State house of representatives in 1811, 1816, 1817, and 1824. He was elected as an Adams candidate to the United States House of Representatives from 1827 to 1832 (the Twentieth, as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-first, and Twenty-second Congresses). Prior to that, he had also served in the Vermont House of Representatives.

He died in Washington D.C. while still in office. He is buried in Brattleboro, Vermont. Following Hunt's death, his wife took their children to Geneva, Paris and Rome to live, where they were able to study the arts in European academies. Congressman Hunt's namesake son Jonathan remained in Paris, where he practiced medicine until his early death, a suicide in 1874. (Jonathan Hunt's son William Morris Hunt also committed suicide, at the Isle of Shoals in New Hampshire.)


[edit] References

  1. ^ The History of the Descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass., Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight, New York, 1874
  2. ^ Vermont: The Green Mountain State, Walter Hill Crockett, New York, 1921

[edit] External links

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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