5th President of the Continental Congress 2 and 1st President of the Confederation Congress Samuel Huntington

Former President of the Continental Congress

Samuel Huntington was a jurist, statesman, and Patriot in the American Revolution from Connecticut. As a delegate to the Continental Congress, he signed the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation.
Born: July 16, 1731, Windham, CT
Died: January 5, 1796, Norwich, CT
Governor: Matthew Griswold
Resting place: Norwich
Place of burial: Connecticut
Previous offices: Governor of Connecticut (1786–1796), President of the Continental Congress (1779–1781)
SAMUEL HUNTINGTON was born on July 16, 1731 at Scotland, Connecticut, the son of a Puritan farmer. The date of July 16th differs from the official Congressional
Both Martha and Samuel Huntington were re-interred on November 24, 2003 Old Norwichtown Cemetery, Norwich, New London County, Connecticut (see editorial below).

President Huntington was a self-educated man who at age sixteen, was apprenticed to a cooper. He taught himself Latin at night and devoured every book on law he could find. At twenty-seven he was admitted to the bar, then moved to Norwich, a larger town offering more opportunity. After a year, however, he married Martha Devotion the local minister’s daughter, and set up what would eventually become a most lucrative law practice.

In 1764, Huntington was elected to the provincial assembly, and in quick succession became a justice of the peace, the king’s attorney for Connecticut, and a member of the colony’s council. He was elected and served in the second Continental Congress of the United Colonies of America representing Connecticut at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Huntington worked hard and long for independence, however quietly. A fellow delegate wrote: He is a man of mild, steady, and firm conduct and of sound methodical judgment, tho’ not a man of many words or very shining abilities. But upon the whole is better suited to preside than any other member now in Congress.

After signing the Declaration, Huntington served in the Continental Congress for three more years when, on September 28, 1779, he was elected President. Huntington presided over the Confederation Congress during a critical period in the War for Independence. His commitment to Independence and his Presidency is renowned among scholars as his unwavering leadership held our nation together during a succession of military losses, sedition and defections:

By the fall of 1780 three years had elapsed since Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga. The fortunes of the Americans, instead of improving, had grown worse to the point of desperation. France’s aid had thus far proved to be quite minor, the southern army had been annihilated, US paper money, the Continental had become worthless, US credit abroad hinged on the dwindling fortunes of patriots like Robert Morris and Haym Salomon. The founding Articles of Confederation which were to form the perpetual Union of the United States of America, after four years, had yet to be ratified. Legally, the nation that sought foreign recognition and aid was not a united country as its own “constitution” was no ratified by all 13 states. Prospects of the United States’s survival were far past bleak as the country had never been formed!

The army, clothed in rags, half-starved and not paid, was ripe for the mutiny and desertions to the British lines averaged more than 100 a month. Samuel Huntington’s Presidential Predecessor, former Continental Congress President Henry Middleton betrayed his fellow patriots and declared a renewed loyalty to King George III. Even George Washington wrote that “he had almost ceased to hope.”

In the summer of 1780 the spirit of desertion now seized Washington’s greatest General, Benedict Arnold, with whom the British commander had for some time tampered through the mediation of John Andre and an American loyalist, Beverley Robinson. Stung by the injustice he had suffered, and influenced by history surroundings, Arnold made up his mind to play a part like that which General Monk had played in the restoration of Charles II to the British throne. By putting the British in possession of the Hudson river at West Point, Arnold would deliver the British all that they had sought to obtain by the campaigns of 1776-’77. Once West Point was secured the American cause would thus become so hopeless that an occasion would be offered for negotiation.