[3] He was a classmate of Horatio Seymour at the Oxford and Geneva Academies, and graduated from Union College in 1828, where he was an early member of the Kappa Alpha Society.

[5] Hunt remained in private practice until 1865, when he was elected to an eight-year term on the New York Court of Appeals on the Republican ticket, to succeed to the seat held by his former law teacher and partner Hiram Denio.

[3] Hunt was a friend and patron of political boss Roscoe Conkling, who was an associate of President Ulysses S. Grant.

When Samuel Nelson retired from the Supreme Court, Conkling asked Grant to nominate Hunt for the vacancy.

[1][7] Hunt had little impact on the court, siding with the majority in all but 22 cases in his ten years on the job and writing only four dissenting opinions.