William Henry Hunt was an American jurist, secretary of the navy, and diplomat.
Background
Hunt was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1823. He was the son of Thomas and Louisa (Gaillard) Hunt. His father, of English West India colonial ancestry, was born in Nassau, New Providence, and came to the United States about 1800. On his mother's side he was descended from an old Huguenot family which had settled near Charleston about 1680. Thomas Hunt died in 1832, leaving the family in straitened circumstances. The mother was sent to New Haven, Connecticut, with her five daughters and two younger sons, one of whom was William, so that she could complete the education of her children. In 1839 the family went to New Orleans to make their permanent home.
Education
William and his brother entered the Hopkins Grammar School, a preparatory school for Yale. William entered Yale College. In the early part of his junior year poverty forced him to abandon the academic course. After a few months he entered the Yale law school, hoping in this way to facilitate his admission to the bar, but he was again obliged to cut short his studies and join his family in New Orleans.
Career
In New Orleans his brothers were prominent young attorneys and they gave him an opportunity to study law in their office. In 1844 he was admitted to the Louisiana bar and successfully practised law in New Orleans until 1878. The best known cases in which he appeared as counsel or attorney were the Slaughter House cases and Jackson vs. Vicksburg, Shreveport, and Texas Railroad Company. For a few months in 1866 he was professor of civil law in the law school of the University of Louisiana (later Tulane University), taking the place of his brother Randell, who was temporarily absent.
While he did not hold a prominent political office until comparatively late in his career, Hunt was always interested in politics. As a child in South Carolina he had had his first lesson when his elder brothers fought against nullification. From 1844 to 1854 he was a Whig, then he joined the Know-Nothings. In 1860 he supported the ticket of the Constitutional Union party. From 1860 to 1865 his status was that of a southern Unionist. Early in the Civil War he was embarrassed by being drafted into the Confederate service and commissioned a lieutenantcolonel, but his military activities were confined to drilling troops for a few months at New Orleans. After Farragut captured the city he entertained the admiral and the officers of his fleet. On July 3, 1876, he was nominated for the office of state attorney general by the Republicans and was later elected, but he lost the position when the Democrats gained control of Louisiana after the Hayes-Tilden election. He was appointed associate judge of the United States Court of Claims, May 15, 1878, and held the position until appointed secretary of the navy by President Garfield, Mar. 5, 1881. Here his most notable service was the appointment of the first naval advisory board which began the work of building the new American navy. On April 7, 1882, he was appointed United States minister to Russia by President Arthur. According to his son and biographer, he considered the appointment equivalent to a dismissal from the office of secretary of the navy.
After he reached Russia, his health, which had not been good since 1878, took a turn for the worse, and he died February 27, 1884. His body was brought to the United States the following March, and his funeral took place in St. John's Episcopal Church, Washington, D. C. , on April 8. He was buried in Oak Hill cemetery, Washington.
Achievements
He is remembered as the United States Secretary of the Navy under President James Garfield and briefly under President Chester A. Arthur.
Two ships in the United States Navy have been named USS Hunt for him.
Views
Quotations:
“I agree that Ruskin has done much harm to counter balance much good in giving people the trick of talking about Art instead of really doing a little of it to enable them to understand. ”
“There is no more reason why the features belonging to a picture should be distorted for the purpose of such imaginative suggestion than that the poet's metaphors should spoil his words for the ordinary uses of man. ”
Connections
Hunt was married four times. His first wife, Frances Ann Andrews, of Hinds County, Miss. , whom he married in November 16, 1848, died of tuberculosis eight months after the wedding. On October 14, 1852, he married, in the state of New York, Elizabeth Augusta Ridgely, daughter of Commodore Charles G. Ridgely. They made their home in New Orleans, where his son Gaillard and their other six children were born. Two years after her death in 1864, he married, in New Orleans, Sarah Barker Harrison, from whom he was divorced four years later. On June 1, 1871, he married Mrs. Louise F. Hopkins, niece of a prominent New Orleans merchant.
