[1] After receiving an education at Canandaigua, New York with his uncle Elisha Mills, at the age of fourteen he entered the law office of Mark H. Sibley (later a New York State Senator and a U.S. Representative) and read law.

In 1822, he went to Indiana with his elder brother Nathaniel where he studied for four years before being admitted to the state bar.

President John Tyler appointed him Commissioner of the United States General Land Office in Washington, D.C. from 1841 to 1842.

[6] Per his wishes, his nephew John H. Rea of Indianapolis took his remains and he was buried at Saint Joseph Cemetery (he converted to Roman Catholicism, his wife's religion, late in his life) in Terre Haute, Indiana.

[7] Through his eldest son Robert, he was a grandfather of tennis player and architect Robert Palmer Huntington, who married Helen Gray Dinsmore and was the father of socialite, arts patron, and political hostess Helen Huntington Hull,[1] the first wife of Vincent Astor of the Astor family.