Carleton Hunt

Carleton Hunt (January 1, 1836 – August 14, 1921) was an American lawyer, educator, and politician who served one term as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Thomas Hunt (1808–1867), a prominent New Orleans physician and one of the founders of the medical department that later became part of Tulane University, and Aglae Marie Carleton (1816–1847). Raised in a family closely connected to the city’s professional and educational life, Hunt grew up in an environment that emphasized public service and higher learning. His mother died when he was still a child, and his father’s stature in the medical and academic communities helped shape Hunt’s own path toward the law and public affairs.

Hunt pursued his early education in New Orleans before enrolling at Harvard University, where he completed his undergraduate studies. His time at Harvard exposed him to a broad liberal education and the political debates of the antebellum era. After returning to New Orleans, he studied law at what became Tulane University’s law department, receiving formal legal training that prepared him for admission to the bar. Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, Hunt was politically affiliated with the Constitutional Union Party, a short-lived national party that sought to preserve the Union and avoid sectional conflict by emphasizing adherence to the Constitution and the enforcement of existing laws.

With the secession of Louisiana and the onset of the Civil War, Hunt aligned with his state and entered Confederate service. He served as a lieutenant in the Confederate artillery, a role that placed him in the military campaigns of the Western Theater and along the Gulf region. His wartime correspondence and experiences, later preserved in collections such as the Harvard University Archives’ Civil War papers of Carleton Hunt (1861–1864), reflect the perspective of a Southern officer with Northern educational ties navigating the divided loyalties of the era. After the war, he resumed his legal career in New Orleans, rebuilding his practice in a city undergoing Reconstruction and significant political and economic change.

Hunt’s postwar career increasingly centered on legal education and institutional leadership. He joined the faculty of the law school that would become part of Tulane University and rose to become a professor of law. Demonstrating both administrative skill and scholarly reputation, he served as dean of the Tulane law school for ten years, playing a major role in shaping its curriculum and professional standards during a formative period for legal education in the South. His family’s longstanding association with Tulane—through his father’s role in the medical department and his own leadership in the law school—helped solidify the university’s position as a leading institution in New Orleans.

In addition to his academic work, Hunt remained active in civic and professional circles. He was a member of The Boston Club of New Orleans, one of the city’s oldest and most influential social clubs, which drew together leading figures in law, business, and politics. His participation in such organizations reflected his status within the city’s elite and provided a network that supported his legal and political endeavors. Throughout these years, he maintained a substantial law practice, representing clients in a range of civil and commercial matters while also contributing to the broader legal community of Louisiana.

Hunt entered national politics as a Democrat in the post-Reconstruction era, when Louisiana and other Southern states were consolidating Democratic control. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served one term, representing Louisiana in the Forty-seventh Congress. During his tenure in Congress, he aligned with the Democratic Party’s positions on issues affecting the postwar South, including questions of federal authority, economic recovery, and the legal framework governing the former Confederate states. His service in Washington drew on his legal expertise and his experience as an educator, and he participated in the legislative work of a Congress grappling with tariff policy, civil service reform, and the lingering effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

In his personal life, Carleton Hunt married Georgine Cammack. The couple had three sons, who followed their parents’ professional example by entering the learned professions; one became a physician and the other two became lawyers, continuing the family’s multigenerational involvement in medicine and law. Hunt remained closely tied to New Orleans throughout his life, balancing his roles as attorney, educator, and public official with his responsibilities as husband and father. He lived to see the city transition into the twentieth century, with its legal and educational institutions increasingly modernized.

Carleton Hunt died in New Orleans on August 14, 1921. His long life spanned the antebellum period, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the early decades of the twentieth century, and his career reflected the evolution of Louisiana’s legal and political institutions across those eras. Through his service as a Confederate officer, his leadership at Tulane’s law school, his membership in The Boston Club, and his term in the U.S. House of Representatives, he left a record of engagement in both the civic and intellectual life of his state.