Washington Hunt (August 5, 1811 – February 2, 1867) was an American lawyer and politician.

Life and career

Hunt was born in Windham, New York. He moved to Lockport, New York in 1828 to study law, was admitted to the bar in 1834, and opened a law office on Market Street in 1835. He was First Judge of the Niagara County Court from 1836 to 1841. He was elected as a Whig to the 28th, 29th and

30th United States Congress The 30th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1847, ...

es, and served from March 4, 1843, to March 3, 1849. He was elected New York State Comptroller by the State Legislature after the resignation of Millard Fillmore who had been elected

U.S. Vice President The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice pr ...

. In November 1849, he was re-elected, but resigned the comptrollership after his election as

Governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...

the following year. He was Governor from 1851 to 1852, and was defeated for re-election by Horatio Seymour. After the break-up of the Whig Party, Hunt, despite his previous association with the Seward/ Weed faction of the party, was among the more conservative Whigs who refused to join the Republicans. Hunt was the chairman of the

1856 Whig National Convention The 1856 Whig National Convention was a presidential nominating convention held from September 17 to September 18, in Baltimore, Maryland. Attended by a rump group of Whigs who had not yet left the declining party, the 1856 convention was the l ...

and supported his fellow New York Whig, former president Millard Fillmore for the presidency in that year. In 1860, Hunt joined the Constitutional Union Party and supported its nominee for the presidency, John Bell. After it became clear that Bell could not win on his own in New York, Hunt was involved in the formation of a fusion ticket with the supporters of Democrat Stephen Douglas. In his last years, Hunt moved increasingly closer to the Democrats, endorsing his two-time opponent, Horatio Seymour for the New York gubernatorial race in 1862 and supporting George McClellan for the presidency at the

1864 Democratic National Convention The 1864 Democratic National Convention was held at The Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois. The Convention nominated Major General George B. McClellan from New Jersey for president, and Representative George H. Pendleton of Ohio for vice president ...

. On June 13, 1864, Hunt was at Niagara Falls to confer with Confederate Commissioner Jacob Thompson.p. 145, Castleman, John Breckenridge. Active Service. Louisville, KY: Courier-Journal Job Printing, 1917. He became a supporter of President

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...

after the war, and supported Johnson's abortive "National Union" movement, serving as a delegate at the National Union Convention of 1866, which sought to join Democrats and conservative Republicans into a new party to support Johnson. His brother was Major Edward B. Hunt, a West Point graduate, who was killed in October 1863 while working with an experimental weapons system. He was buried at the Glenwood Cemetery in Lockport. His former Lockport home at 363 Market Street is in the Lowertown Historic District. ''See also:''

Sources

Political Graveyard * www.famousamericans.net/washingtonhunt/ Bio from Appleton's Encyclopedia, at Famous Americans
Google Books
''The New York Civil List'' compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 31, 34 and 362; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)

External links

Photo of his law office, at Lockport website
* ttps://books.google.com/books?id=r_xLAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=wheeler+bristol+state+engineer&lr=&hl=pt-BR&source=gbs_similarbooks_r&cad=1_1#PPA403,M1''The New York Civil List'' compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough, Stephen C. Hutchins and Edgar Albert Werner (page 403; Weed, Parsons & Co., Albany NY, 1867) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, Washington 1811 births 1867 deaths Politicians from Lockport, New York Governors of New York (state) New York State Comptrollers New York (state) state court judges 19th-century American Episcopalians New York (state) Constitutional Unionists Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state) Whig Party state governors of the United States 19th-century American politicians 19th-century American judges