Elisha Mills Huntington
Third District Court Judge, 1842-1862

    Elisha Mills Huntington was born in Otsego County, New York on March 26, 1806. At age 16, he moved to Vigo County to join his older brother, Nathaniel, at Fort Harrison. In 1827, he read law in his brother’s law office. Upon completing his studies, Huntington took up private practice in Cannelton, Indiana and later became a prosecuting attorney in Indiana’s Seventh Circuit. Huntington also was elected as a state representative. In 1837, he became presiding judge of the Seventh Circuit of Indiana.

    Huntington is most famous for his twenty years as a federal judge. He was nominated by President John Tyler on April 26, 1842 and confirmed by the Senate six days later. Huntington’s letters to family members reveal the nature of federal trials in Indiana in the mid-nineteenth century. The 1843 trial of a postmaster accused of opening private letters addressed to the previous postmaster particularly rankled Huntington:
     
 “For you know the constitution says that ‘cruel and unusual punishment shall not be inflicted’— Oh, it is horrifying to be compelled to sit for hours and listen to such rant.”

In the years before the Civil War, Huntington was noted to be a Unionist who sought reconciliation between the North and the South and was an early supporter of Stephen A. Douglas. In 1862, he criticized Abraham Lincoln for “his foolish twaddle about Emancipation.”

Huntington died in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 26, 1862.

                                                                                                                    Sources:
The Federal Judicial Center’s Biographical Directory of Federal Judges: www.fjc.gov/history/home/nsf.

George Geib and Donald B. Kite, Sr. Federal Justice in Indiana: The History of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Indianapolis: The Indiana Historical Society Press, 2007.