Samuel Huntington

Biography

Samuel Huntington was the second son born to Nathaniel and Mehetabel Thurston Huntington. His father was a farmer—not wealthy, but modestly successful. Although several of Samuel’s brothers went to college, Samuel did not. Instead, he worked on the farm. He began to educate himself, however, encouraged by the family’s minister who gave him access to his own library. The library was not the only magnet that attracted Samuel; the minister’s daughter Martha drew him to his mentor’s home as well. As soon as he was able to support a wife, he and Martha married.

Huntington’s main interest was the law, and in 1754, he was admitted to the Connecticut bar. By 1760 he had moved from his hometown of Windham to the larger town of Norwich and set up his law practice there. In 1764, the town sent him to the colony’s General Assembly and, from that point on, his political rise was assured. He served next in the upper house of the legislature and then joined the Governor’s Council. By 1773 he was on the colony’s Supreme Court and became its chief justice in 1784.

Huntington was not a political radical, but it was clear that he was no supporter of Britain’s policies in the decade following England’s victory in the French and Indian War. He spoke out publicly against the Coercive Acts in 1774, and by 1776 he was in Philadelphia as one of Connecticut’s delegates to the Second Continental Congress. In Philadelphia Huntington contracted smallpox and did not join the congressional debates until February of 1776. Along with fellow Connecticut delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Wolcott, Huntington signed the Declaration of Independence.

Although Huntington was not known as a particularly talented orator, he was recognized for his industry on Congressional committees and for his composure in debate. In September of 1779 his colleagues chose him to serve as President of the Continental Congress. The fact that he did not show strong regional bias on issues was a key reason delegates from the South and from the middle states supported this appointment. Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania explained why Huntington was the perfect choice for the job, writing that he was “a sensible, candid, and worthy man, and wholly free from State prejudices.”

As President of the Congress, Huntington presided over the Congress’s approval of the Articles of Confederation. From that point on, Huntington’s title became President of the United States in Congress Assembled. Although he often wrote wistfully of returning home to Connecticut, he remained in Congress as its President until July of 1781, when poor health caused him to resign. The state of Connecticut made him its Lieutenant Governor in 1784 and its Governor in 1786. Although he continued on the state Supreme Court bench while Lieutenant Governor, he stepped down when he became the chief executive. In 1788 he presided over the state’s ratifying convention for the US Constitution.

Huntington’s health declined in the 1790s. On January 5, 1796, he died of what 18th century doctors called “dropsy of the chest”—or, in modern terms, edema, the accumulation of fluids in his chest cavity. In 1794, a visitor from England aptly described Huntington as “a respectable looking man grown gray in the service of his country, of strong sense in conversation, of a countenance sedate, thoughtful and begninant, and of plain unaffected manners.”