The son of Confederate general Eppa Hunton, he experienced a turbulent childhood with the American Civil War and Reconstruction as its backdrop.

With Union soldiers about to reach Brentsville on their way to Richmond, Hunton and his family fled their estate early one morning, leaving behind most of their possessions and all but a few enslaved workers.

[2][3] Mere months earlier, congressional leaders agreed that the Electoral Commission (on which Hunton's father was the sole Southern member) would be allowed certify the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency, in exchange for the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South, ending the Reconstruction era.

[4] On April 24, 1901, Hunton married Virginia Semmes Payne, a younger sister of Erva, at St. James' Church in a wedding attended by many of the state's social and political elites.

[4][6][14][15] With his fellow senior partner ill, eventually dying of tuberculosis in 1910, Hunton took on most of the responsibility associated with building the reputation of the new firm.

[22][23] While in the House, he led the effort to have his father reelected to a full term in the United States Senate against Thomas S. Martin and Fitzhugh Lee but was ultimately unsuccessful.

[26] In early 1901, Hunton announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination to the Fauquier County seat in the state constitutional convention to be held that June.

[27] He successfully challenged commonwealth's attorney James P. Jeffries, the choice of T. C. Pilcher's county political machine, in the party primary election and was nominated by acclamation at the succeeding convention.

[30] The constitutional convention was called for two primary reasons: to disenfranchise black voters after the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments and to curb the influence of corporations in state politics.

In a speech delivered on securing the Democratic nomination, Hunton himself expressed his support for taking back suffrage from "ignorant" black voters.

[14] After the convention, he expressed to his father his lack of interest in a political future, though he would continue to take stands on certain issues, such as his opposition to state alcohol prohibition laws during the 1910s.

At the insistence of both Johnston and UCM president Dr. Stuart McGuire, Hunton was one of the first members appointed to the school's new board of visitors by Governor William Hodges Mann.

[40][41] In the latter capacity, he was pitted against his former law partner's wife, Mary-Cooke Branch Munford, when he led opposition to the creation of a coordinate college of the university that would admit women.

Taking up an office in Richmond's Broad Street Station, he succeeded the late William H. White, under whom he had served as the railroad's general counsel since 1914.

[46] Chief among Hunton's accomplishments as president was the establishment of a Voluntary Relief Department that allowed railroad employees to save a portion of their salary to go towards supporting their family after their death.

In his will, he left over $500,000 to his widow, $250,000 to his son, $10,000 to MCV, and $5,000 to St. Paul's Church; he also established a $50,000 trust fund to be used to aid Richmond's neediest residents.

[53] After a number of years, it was purchased by the newly established Virginia Commonwealth University, which has used it since as office space for its Department of Psychology as well as the Clark-Hill Institute for Positive Youth Development.