Simon Huntington, the ancestor of the Huntington family, was born in England. He married Margaret Baret. In 1633 he, with his wife and son, emigrated to America. He died on the voyage and was buried at sea.
(II) Simon (2), son of Simon (1) and Margaret (Baret) Huntington, was born in England in 1629. He married Sarah, daughter of Joseph Clark, of Windsor, and later of Saybrook, Connecticut.
(III) Deacon Joseph Huntington, son of Simon (2) and Sarah (Clark) Huntington, was born at Norwich, September, 1661, died December 29, 1747. He was one of the founders of Windham, Connecticut. He married Rebecca Adgate, born June, 1666.
(IV) Nathaniel, son of Deacon Joseph and Rebecca (Adgate) Huntington, was born at Norwich, September 1, 1691. He married Mehitable Thurston. Children: Enoch, of further mention; Samuel, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, president of the colonial congress, and afterward governor of Connecticut.
(V) Rev. Enoch Huntington, son of Nathaniel and Mehitable (Thurston) Huntington, was born December 15, 1739. He graduated from Yale in 1759; studied for the ministry and was ordained and installed over the First Church of Middletown, January, 1762, and there spent his life. He was considered during his collegiate course a man of remarkable talents and his classical and general scholarship subsequently justified the decision. He won the Berkely premium of his class. In the pulpit he was very popular. He took a great interest in politics during the revolutionary period, and many of his sermons and addresses of that day were printed and have been preserved. He married, at Windham, Connecticut, July 17, 1764, Mary, born October 14, 1744, daughter of Samuel Gray.
(VI) Judge Samuel Gray Huntington, son of Rev. Enoch and Mary (Gray) Huntington, was born at Middletown, Connecticut, May 21, 1782, died at Troy, New York, July 5, 1854. He graduated from Yale in 1800, taking the Berkely premium. At a meeting of the Rensselaer county bar, held the day after his death, ample testimony was given of his ability and great worth; we quote from the resolutions passed at that time.
"Resolved, That the bar of this city, by the death of the Honorable Samuel G. Huntington, have lost their oldest member, a lawyer and a scholar; a man thoroughly bred to his profession, and ever ready to impart to others that knowledge which his careful training, advanced age and varied experience had given him. Resolved, That the extent and variety of his classical and legal learning, may well awaken the emulation of us, his survivors."
In seconding the resolutions, Hon. D. L. Seymour spoke as follows:
"We are again assembled to take appropriate notice of the death of one of our members. The oldest member of the Rensselaer bar has fallen. Although past three score years and ten, yet such had been the vigor and animation of his declining years, that his sudden demise affected us almost as if he had been struck down in the full strength of manhood. We feel deeply this sudden providence, and as brethren of the legal profession feel that the bar of our County has sustained a loss, and that we individually mourn the loss of a friend."
Samuel Gray Huntington was the son of the Reverend Enoch Huntington, and like most of the youths of his native State, received the rudiments of a thorough education in the excellent school, then and still liberally and carefully sustained by the able legislation of that State. After leaving the common school he passed through the education preparatory to admission to a collegiate course, and was admitted to Yale College, where he graduated with the honors of that ancient University, in 1800. Judge Huntington left college with a thorough classical education and at once entered upon the study of law, in the office of his brother, Enoch (2) Huntington, then a practicing lawyer of good standing in his native town. After the usual period of study he was admitted to the bar of Middlesex County. It is profitable to dwell for a moment upon this period of his life. He had selected the law for his profession, and in making that choice he doubtless felt that the legal profession yielded to no other in dignity or importance. That the first object of the young lawyer, whether he consulted his reputation or his fame, was to master not only the forms, precedents and superficial structure of the science, but its first principles, its very fountain opening up through the social and political condition of man and disclosing the necessary wiles regulating his rights of person and property. At that day, too, the great lights of the bar and bench of his native State beckoned him onward in a course of honorable distinction in his profession. Such men as Reeve and Swift adorned the bench, while Pierpont Edwards, Goddard, Daggett, and Gould, shone at the bar. Entering upon the practice of his profession with such an excellent preparation and under such incentive his success was almost certain. He had already attained a reputable standing among the younger members of the bar of his native State when, about the year 1806, he removed to New York State, and settled in Waterford, Saratoga County. Here he soon rose to eminence as a lawyer, and ranked among the ablest of the many distinguished men who have graced the bar of that County. He removed to Troy in 1825. For many years his professional business here was among the largest and most lucrative. His counsel was sought in the most important cases, particularly in those relating to real estate. In this branch of the law he was master, as well from his intimate acquaintance with the decisions of the English Courts as from the fact that the period of his practice reaching to upward of half a century, embraced that space in the history of our country during which not only the system of our law of real estate, but in fact almost the entire body of American common law, had been formed. When he commenced practice there was no American Commentator on the law, and the reported cases, either in Connecticut or New York, did not exceed half a dozen volumes. Under the administration of Governor Clinton, he was appointed to the office of judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Rensselaer County, and discharged its duties with great ability and impartiality. His decisions always commanded respect, as they were felt to be the result of an honest conviction of the right of the case in a mind guided by patient research and stored with legal lore.
"In the death of Judge Huntington, his brethren of the bar mourn the loss of one in whose counsels they have often confided, whose legal acquirements did honor to their profession, whose professional relation to them all was kind, courteous and honorable, and whose social intercourse so often helped to strip labor of its drudgery, relieved life of its tedium, and to strew our pathway with pleasant, harmless trifles and gay flowers."
He married (first) Mary Johnston, of Middletown. He married (second) June 23, 1825, Janette C. Cheever. who died November 4, 1856. Samuel G. Huntington had a daughter,
- Sarah Sayr, born in Waterford, New York; married, November 30, 1841, John H. Whitlock, of Troy, New York.