Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/348

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HUNT
HUNT

venting the forts of southern Florida from falling into the hands of the Confederates at the begin- ning of the civil war. In 1862 he served as chief engineer of the department of the Shenandoah. He was subsequently employed in erecting fortifi- cations on Long Island sound, and in April, 1862, was detailed to perfect and construct a battery for firing under water, which was invented by him, and which he called the "sea miner." He was pro- moted major on 3 March, 1863. While making experiments with his submarine battery, he was suffocated by the escaping gases, and killed by falling: into the hold of the vessel. He married a daughter of Prof. Nathan W. Fiske. (See Jackson, Helen Maria Fiske.) He contributed papers to the "Transactions" of the American association for the advancement of science, and to several literary and scientific periodicals.


HUNT, William, surgeon, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 26 Sept., 1825. He was educated at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, studied medicine, and graduated in 1849. He has since devoted him- self largely to surgery, in the practice of which he has attained eminence. He has been demon- strator of anatomy in the University of Pennsyl- vania, and surgeon of the Episcopal and Wills hospitals, and is now (1887) surgeon of the Ortho- pedic and Pennsylvania hospitals. He is a fellow of the College of physicians and a member of nu- merous other medical organizations. Dr. Hunt is joint author of " Surgery in the Pennsylvania Hos- pital, being an Epitome of the Hospital since 1756 " (Philadelphia, 1880).


HUNT, William Henry, lawyer, b. in Charles- ton, S. C, in 1824 ; d. in St. Petersburg, Russia, 27 Feb., 1884. He was educated at Yale, but not graduated, removed to New Orleans, where he was admitted to the bar, and for several years was professor of commercial law and the law of evi- dence in the law- school of that city. He took little part in politics, but was a consistent Union- ist throughout the civil war. In March, 1876, he was ap- pointed attorney- general of the state, and in the same

year was the Republican candidate for

this office. Both parties claimed the victory in the election, but the Democratic state government was recognized by President Hayes. In 1878 he was appointed judge of the court of claims, and in 1881 he became secretary of the navy. Previous to his nomination to this office, the bar of Louisi- ana, without respect to party, had unanimously recommended Mr. Hunt to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice Strong from the su- preme court of the United States. The reorgani- zation of the cabinet on the death of President Garfield retired him from his office, and in 1882 he was appointed minister to Russia. — His elder brother, Randall, was among the most eminent lawyers at the Louisiana bar, ranking with Chris- tian Roselius and Judah P. Benjamin.


HUNT, William Morris, artist, b. in Brattle- boro, Vt., 31 March, 1824 ; d. in Appledore, Isles of Shoals, N. H., 8 Sept., 1879. He entered Harvard in 1840, but left on account of impaired health and went to Europe. His first aspirations for art were in the direction of sculpture, and he entered the Royal academy at Dusseldorf in 1846, with that purpose in view. But after a few months this taste gave place to a preference for painting, and he became a pupil of Couture at Paris, subsequently coming under the influence of Millet and Barbizan, whose broad method of ren- dering humanity and nature was henceforth sug- gested in the style of Hunt. In 1855 he returned to the United States and had a studio in Newport, but soon settled permanently in Boston, where he taught art with great success. He exercised much influence in shaping the future of American art, partly by leading his students to the study of the new art methods that were practised at Paris, and partly by aiding in the introduction here of a more clear perception of the principles of art. Among his important works are portraits of Chief-Justice Shaw, painted for the Essex bar, Judge Horace Gray, Mrs. Charles Francis Adams, William M. Evarts. James Freeman Clarke, and Charles Sum- ner. His compositions, generally single figures broadly and forcibly rendered, include the " Prodi- gal Son," " Priscilla," " The Drummer Boy " (1861) ; "Fortune Teller," " Marguerite," and " The Bathers," which is one of his best known works. Chief among his landscapes are " Gloucester Har- bor " and " Plowing," combining landscape and figure. Toward the close of his life Mr. Hunt exe- cuted two ambitious allegorical mural paintings for the state capitol at Albany, entitled "The Flight of Night" and "The Discoverer." His "Talks on Art " were taken down and published by one of his pupils, Miss Helen M. Knowlton (2 vols., Boston, 1875). — His brother, Richard Mor- ris, architect, b. in Brattleboro, Vt., 31 Oct., 1828, after studying architecture in this country, en- tered the Ecole des beaux arts in Paris, and was for some time a pupil of Hector Lefuel,whomhe assisted in erect- ing the build- ings connect- ing the Tuileries and the Louvre. After visiting Greece, Asia Mi- nor, Egypt, and the art centres of thecontinent.he returned to the United States in 1855, and was engaged on the extension of the capitol at Wash- ington. Among the structures designed by him are the Lenox li- brary, the Pres- byterian hospi- tal, the Tribune building, the

William K.Vanderbilt house,

and the Central park entrances in New York; the theological library and Marquand chapel at Princeton; the divinity colleges and the Scroll and key