Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Huntington, Lucius Seth

HUNTINGTON, Lucius Seth, Canadian states- man, b. in Compton, Quebec, 26 May, 1827 ; d. in New York city, 19 May, 1886. He was the grand- son of a New England loyalist who removed to Canada and settled at Compton toward the end of the 18th century. He was educated at Sherbrooke, where he studied law, was admitted to the bar of Lower Canada in 1853, and appointed queen's coun- sel in 1863. He contested Shefford for the Canada assembly in 1860, when there was no return, repre- senting that constituency from the general election of 1861 till the union, and in the Dominion parlia- ment from 1867 till 1882, when he was defeated. He was a member of the executive council of Canada, and solicitor-general of Lower Canada from May, 1863, till March, 1864, when the Sand- field Macdonald-Dorion government resigned. He became a member of the privy council of Canada, 29 Jan., 1874, and was president of that body from that time until appointed postmaster-general, 9 Oct., 1875, which portfolio he held until the resig- nation of the government in October, 1878. Dur- ing the absence of the premier, Alexander Mac- Kenzie, in England in 1875, Mr. Huntington acted as minister of public works. He took an active part in prosecuting the inquiry relative to the Canadian Pacific railway scandal, which resulted in the fall of the Conservative government in Oc- tober, 1873. He was largely interested in mining industries, and had for years been engaged in de- veloping those of the province of Quebec. For three years before his death he resided in New York city, undergoing treatment for a malady that at last proved fatal. He was regarded in Canada as a pronounced annexationist, and some of his politi- cal titterances in favor of this project tended to render him unpopular toward the close of his po- litical career. He was the author of a novel, " Pro- fessor Conant " (New York, 1884).