Page:Letters of Life.djvu/166

154 The name of Huntington has already been mentioned as copartner with Lathrop in the acknowledged aristocracy of olden time. Between them was no rivalry or disturbing force, as among the Montagues and Capulets. Neither is it a slight merit that they should cherish the bonds of private friendship, and seek the general good of the community, since there might naturally arise causes of competition, or of ambitious strife, to which few who were similarly situated would have held themselves always superior.

After I was old enough to become an observer, the dynasty of the Huntingtons was the most numerous; and of those branches which were located around what was then called Huntington Square, my recollections are vivid, our own residence being in that neighborhood.

General Jabez Huntington, the father of this distinguished house, I never saw, and presume that he must have died before my birth. With the eldest son, General Jedediah Huntington, a patriotic and saintly man, and the friend of Washington, I was not personally acquainted, he, with his family, having early become inhabitants of New London. Judge Andrew Huntington, the second in succession, was a man of plain manners and incorruptible integrity. His few words were always those of good sense and truth, and the weight of his influence ever given to the best interests of society. His was that true republican simplicity of virtue