Adam Huntsman
{{short description|American politician}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name = Adam Huntsman
|image =
|order =
|district1 = 12th
|state1 = Tennessee
|term_start1 = March 4, 1835
|term_end1 = March 3, 1837
|predecessor1 = Davy Crockett
|successor1 = John W. Crockett
|office2 = Member of the Tennessee Senate
|term2 = 1815–1821
1827–1831
|party = Jacksonian
|birth_date = February 11, 1786
|birth_place = Charlotte County, Virginia, US
|death_date = August 23, 1849 (aged 63)
|death_place = Jackson, Tennessee, US
|spouse =
|children =
|alma_mater =
|profession = {{ubl
| lawyer
}}
|religion =
}}
Adam Huntsman (February 11, 1786 – August 23, 1849) was an American lawyer and politician who represented Tennessee's twelfth district in the United States House of Representatives from 1835 to 1837. He was a slaveholder.{{cite news |last1=Weil |first1=Julie Zauzmer |last2=Blanco |first2=Adrian |last3=Dominguez |first3=Leo |title=More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/ |access-date=30 January 2022 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=20 January 2022}}
File:Old Salem Cemetery Jackson TN 16 Adam Huntsman Grave.jpg]]
Biography
Huntsman was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, on February 11, 1786.{{cite web|title=Adam Huntsman|url=http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H001000|publisher=Biographical Directory of the United States Congress|accessdate=5 March 2013}} He came to Knox County, Tennessee, in 1809, where he settled for about three years. It was here that he studied law under John Williams, one of Knoxville's most prominent attorneys in the early nineteenth century and later a United States Senator.
Career
{{Unreferenced section|date=October 2022}}
Huntsman carried the legal skills he learned from Williams with him westward to Overton County, Tennessee and later Madison County, Tennessee, where he became a highly regarded criminal lawyer.
Huntsman served in the Tennessee state senate from 1815 to 1821 and from 1827 to 1831. A proponent of revision to the state constitution, he was elected a delegate for Madison County, Tennessee, at the constitutional convention held in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1834. He defeated David Crockett for the Twelfth Congressional seat in 1835, a loss that led to Crockett's journey to Texas and his death at the Alamo.
Huntsman served one term as a Jacksonian Democrat to the Twenty-fourth Congress. A leader of the Democratic Party in West Tennessee in the 1830s and 1840s, he corresponded with notable politicians of his day such as Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, and John C. Calhoun. His term lasted from March 4, 1835, to March 4, 1837.{{cite web|title=Adam Huntsman|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/adam_huntsman/405840|publisher=Govtrack US Congress|accessdate=5 March 2013}} He ran unsuccessfully for re-election to the Twenty-fifth Congress, losing to John Wesley Crockett, his predecessor's son.
Legacy
Huntsman died in Jackson, Madison County, Tennessee on August 23, 1849 (aged 63) and is interred at Old Salem Cemetery near Jackson.{{cite web|title=Adam Huntsman|url=http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/huntly-hurlbut.html|publisher=The Political Graveyard|accessdate=March 5, 2013}}
His daughter, Anne Huntsman Scurlock, had a grave marker placed in the "colored section" of Riverside Cemetery in Jackson, Tennessee, for an enslaved man named Silas, who died in 1857. The marker reads "He is not forgotten by his attached mistress."{{Cite web |date=2003-03-25 |title=Riverside Cemetery, Jackson, Tennessee |url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/177ef9c7-070e-41d0-94fd-90ff138fe1a6 |work=National Register of Historic Places Applications |via=nps.gov}}
References
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{{Portal|Biography}}
External links
- [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/huntly-hurlbut.html Adam Huntsman entry] at The Political Graveyard
{{CongBio|H001000}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20151021072126/http://braybreepublishing.com/books/thepeglegpolitician/ The Peg Leg Politician: Adam Huntsman of Tennessee (biography)]
{{Bioguide}}
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{{US House succession box
|before=Davy Crockett |state= Tennessee |district= 12 |years= March 4, 1835 – March 4, 1837 |after= John Wesley Crockett}}
{{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huntsman, Adam}}
Category:Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee
Category:People from Charlotte County, Virginia
Category:People from Jackson, Tennessee
Category:19th-century American lawyers
Category:Democratic Party Tennessee state senators
Category:19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives
Category:19th-century members of the Tennessee General Assembly