 SAMUEL
HUNTINGTON,
third Governor of Ohio from 1808-1810,
was born in Coventry,
Connecticut, October 4, 1765. At his father’s death, the boy was
adopted by his uncle and namesake, Samuel Huntington, signer of the
Declaration of Independence and Governor of Connecticut (1786-96).
Samuel Huntington was a man of small stature but a natural leader and of abounding energy. After Graduating from Yale in 1785 he studied law and was admitted to the bar in Connecticut in 1793. He practiced in that state until 1800. In 1801, Samuel brought his family Cleveland, a village of a few log houses. Soon after coming to Ohio, Governor St. Clair appointed him Lieutenant Colonel of the Trumbull County militia in charge of the troops of the Western Reserve. Huntington favored statehood and opposed the arbitrary rule of Governor St. Clair. He was elected as delegate to the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1802. Huntington was elected to the senate of the first general assembly and was chosen speaker. In April 1803 the general assembly selected him as judge of the Supreme Court. In 1804, he succeeded Return J. Meigs, Jr., as chief justice. In 1808, Huntington was elected governor. His administration was a stormy one. A major concern was the threat of war with Great Britain. There was much agitation also over the temporary location of the capital at Zanesville and of its permanent location. In 1807 he had traded three hundred acres in Cleveland for a large tract on the Grand River and moved to Painesville Township. At the close of his term as Governor he returned to Painesville. There with two others in 1812 he founded the village of Fairport. In 1813, he was appointed army paymaster under General William Henry Harrison and with the general visited a fort at Cleveland named in Huntington's honor. He died on June 8, 1817, of injuries received while supervising repairs on the road from his estate to the Fairport harbor. |
