Background

He was born 20 January 1815, in New York City, the son of Benjamin Huntington Jr. and Faith Trumbull Huntington. His paternal grandfather was Judge Benjamin Huntington (1736 - 1800), a member of the Continental Congress and a Federalist congressman. His maternal grandfather was Gen. Jedediah Huntington. While of "standing order" stock of Connecticut, his maternal grandfather married a sister of Bishop Moore of Virginia, which accounted for the Episcopalianism of the youth's family.

Education

As became a broker's son, Jedediah was trained by tutors and in an Episcopalian private school which prepared him for Yale College. Transferring from Yale, he was graduated in 1835 from the University of the City of New York (later New York University) and then earned a medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania (1838).

Career

Experiencing a call to the ministry, he taught philosophy at St. Paul's School, Flushing, L. I, and studied theology. In 1841 he was ordained an Episcopalian minister and assigned to a church at Middlebury, Vt.

In the meantime he had won somewhat of a reputation, especially in England, on the publication of a sonnet sequence on the "Coronation Sonnets" (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, September 1838). This was followed in 1843 by Poems, which a reviewer in the London Athenæum for January 6, 1844, regarded as "classical and Wordsworthian. " Becoming unsettled in creed because of his interest in the Oxford Movement, he resigned his rectorship in 1846 and went to England, where he accepted High-church principles. Still dissatisfied, he journeyed to Rome where he lived with his brother, Daniel, a painter. Here he wrote Lady Alice which was published both in England and America in 1849 and was accepted as the work of an English Puseyite.

Returning to America, he engaged in the movement for an international copyright agreement as a means of protecting American and English authors from the piracy of publishing houses. For a time he was editor of the shortlived Metropolitan Magazine (Baltimore, 1853 - 54) which was maintained on too high a literary level for the Catholic reading public of the fifties. Later he edited the St. Louis Leader (1855 - 56), a Catholic weekly, which became a daily with Catholic tendencies. Again he failed partly because of his tactless observations on the social crudities of the frontier, on slavery, and other debatable issues.

There was no cessation of literary efforts, and though his novels were more severely criticized in America than in England, they were read. Alban, or the History of a Young Puritan (1851, 1853) recounted in autobiographical form the story of a New Englander in Yale, in New York society, and in religious evolution from Anglicanism to Catholicism. The Pretty Plate (1852), a Sunday-school story which appeared in a number of editions, was followed by America Discovered: a Poem (1852); The Forest, a sequel to Alban (1852); Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the Years 1811, 12, 13, 14 (1854), translated from the French of Gabriel Franchère; Blonde and Brunette (1859); and Rosemary (1860), which is usually regarded as his best work. Among his published lectures, St. Vincent de Paul and the Fruits of his Life (1852) was most widely circulated, and today he is known for his Short and Familiar Answers to Objections Against Religion (1855), translated from the French of Louis Gaston de Segur, which has passed through many editions.

At Pau in France, death finally relieved Huntington from the ravages of phthisis which he had borne so patiently.

Achievements

• Huntington is best known as a writer of fiction. His novels were widely read and received considerable notice in the leading journals in America and England. The criticism was often harsh and at times justly deserved, especially in the case of his first novel Lady Alice and its sequel The Forest. One of his best works is Alban, or the History of a Young Puritan, which is practically the history of his own life. His last work, which is best known and which is the only one reprinted, is Rosemary, or Life and Death.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Alban: A Tale of the New World (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Alban: A Tale of the New World The child, s...)

  • The Forest

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Rosemary: Or, Life And Death

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Poems...

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Blond and Brunette; or, The Gothamite Arcady

Religion

In America it received severe criticism even on moral grounds (North American Review, January 1850) and possibly because of his conversion (and that of his wife) to Catholicism (1849). At any rate this step cost Huntington many old friends if it did not lessen his reputation as a litterateur and the earnings of his pen. In a lecture some years later he described the problems of converts whose opportunities as Catholics to earn a living with pen or by teaching were then quite impossible, and he suggested means in which they might be aided without recourse to charity (St. Vincent de Paul Quarterly, May 1905).

Connections

He married his first cousin, Mary Huntington, in April 1842.

Father:

Benjamin Huntington

Mother:

Faith Trumbull (Huntington) Huntington

Spouse:

Mary Huntington

References

• The Huntington Family in America part I: A Genealogical Memoir of the Known Descendants of Simon Huntington From 1633 to 1915 (Volume 1)
• The Huntington Family in America part II: A Genealogical Memoir of the Known Descendants of Simon Huntington From 1633 to 1915 (Volume 2)
• Catholic Builders of the Nation: Volume IV: A Symposium of the Catholic Contribution to the Civilization of the United States