A biographical sketch of the Reverend Joseph Huntington was published in The Huntington Family in America: A Genealogical Memoir of the Known Descendants of Simon Huntington From 1633 to 1915, published by the Huntington Family Association, Hartford, CT: 1915, pages 578-582. It is now in the public domain and is transcribed below.

"Joseph HUNTINGTON, born May 5, 1735, in Windham, Conn. He graduated at Yale in 1762. His father had destined him to be a clothier, and kept him at this trade through his minority, much against his own wishes. But, moved like his brother, Samuel, by a passionate love of books, and like him, though not to the same remarkable degree, gifted with unusual inquisitiveness and capacity for mastering whatever study he attempted, and moreover, encouraged by the kindly aids furnished by his pastor, Mr. Devotion, he even at that late period commenced and completed successfully his preparation for college. He entered in his twenty-third year, 1758, and graduated honorably with the class. Within a year of his graduation, June 29, 1763, he was installed as pastor of the first church in Coventry, where he continued to labor in word and doctrine through his life.

Like his brother Samuel, he too had found in his pastor's family, the helpmeet he needed, and his marriage with Hannah, daughter of Rev. Ebenezer Devotion, was solemnized in 1764. She became the mother of his first three children and died September 25, 1771, aged twenty-six years. He married, for his second wife, Elizabeth Hale of Glastonbury, Conn., who died in 1806, aged fifty-eight years.

Dr. Sprague, in his Annals of the American Pulpit, has given a most accurate estimate of his ministerial work in Coventry, from which I am happy to quote. He says that his ministry commenced under some most unfavorable auspices. Though there had been two settled pastors there, and one of them, Mr. Meacham, had had a ministry of considerable length, yet the parish had become greatly reduced, the meeting house had been suffered to go to decay, and every thing else was in a state of corresponding depression. The services at his ordination were held in the open air; but whether this was because the meeting house was too small to accommodate the assemblage, or too much dilapidated to be safe or decent, does not appear. Immediately after he was settled, he began to urge upon the people with great zeal the project of building a new meeting house. They responded with unexpected cordiality and harmony to this proposal; and in a short time, they had the best house of public worship in the whole region, built at an expense of five thousand dollars. Mr. Huntington was exceedingly gratified by the success of this enterprise, and often recurred to it with pleasure in the later years of his ministry.

From the period of his settlement, the prosperity of his parish, at least in regard to temporal interests, began to revive; and they continued a united people during his whole ministry. The state of religion, however, was scarcely ever otherwise than depressed; but the same remark is equally applicable, with few exceptions, to the church at large. The period of his ministry embraced the old French war, the war that gave us our independence, and the French Revolution; and each of these events was fruitful of influences most adverse to a healthful and vigorous state of religion in this country.

After the death of the first Dr. Wheelock, President of Dartmouth college, Mr. Huntington was spoken of as the person most likely to succeed to the office; and communications were made to him on the subject, that gave him reason to expect that he would be elected. The result was different from what many had anticipated; but the college testified its respect for him, about the same time, (1780,) by conferring on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He was, also, the same year, elected a member of the board of overseers of the college, and held the place till 1788.

In the spring of 1792, Dr. Huntington was invited to settle at Huntington, Long Island; and he actually made a journey thither before he declined the invitation. The fact that he should have even hesitated on the subject was an occasion of considerable disquietude in his own parish, and seems to have loosened, in some degree, the cord that bound him to his people.

Dr. Huntington continued his labors till near the close of life, though infirmities had, for some time, been increasing upon him, and his health was supposed to have suffered from repeated and severe domestic bereavements. His death, which seemed to be the result of a complication of diseases, took place on the 25th of December, 1794."

No portrait of Dr. Huntington, it is believed, is now in existence. But tradition has taken delight in representing him as a man of more than ordinary personal attractions. His finely proportioned form, his graceful movement, his genial spirit, beaming out from every feature and springing to greet and embrace all whom it could bless ; his ready wit, ever keenest when most needed, and never at fault when wit had work to do; his immense stores of various fact and incident; and his marvelous felicity in anecdote; all contributed to make him, what all who knew him have agreed in styling him, a man of rare social gifts, a most agreeable companion, and a very dear friend.

Dr. Abbot of Peterborough, N. H., who succeeded Dr. Huntington in Coventry, and who had, therefore, a good opportunity of forming his opinion, in his letter to Dr. Sprague, bears this testimony to his personal appearance and character.

"Dr. Huntington was a man of fine personal appearance, and of popular, engaging manners. His intellectual endowments also were much above mediocrity. His perception was quick, his memory retentive, his wit ready, exuberant, and agreeable. He was much respected and beloved by his parishioners and friends, and exerted very considerable influence in the community at large. Dr. Huntington was undoubtedly one of the most popular preachers of the day. He spoke extemporaneously, seldom writing more than a skeleton of the principal topics of a discourse. During the greater part of his life, his reputation was very high; but as his health and strength of body and mind failed, his reputation seemed proportionably to decline. I remember hearing Dr. Backus of Somers, express the opinion at a meeting of ministers not long after Dr. Huntington's death, that he possessed superior talents; and that in the meridian of his life, the public estimate of him was fully up to his actual merits, but that, in his later days, it had fallen below it. He was not a laborious student. He has very few books, and depended chiefly on borrowing; but having an excellent memory, he retained a large part of what he read.

"He was favored with a good constitution, firm health, and a high flow of spirits, for many years; and as one of his parishioners remarked to me would easily ride over all difficulties."

The reputation of Dr. Huntington since his death, has suffered from two causes—the extemporaneous manner of his preaching, and the posthumous work for which he will always be censured by those who deprecate its belief. He wrote so little, that he left no enduring memorial of his power as a preacher and orator. Scarcely a half dozen sermons or addresses of his, were ever written out and given to the press. And his printed sermons are probably less interesting and eloquent than the same when preached; the process of writing them, to which he was so little accustomed, really divesting them of their most striking excellences.

But the work which has wrought most unfavorably upon Dr. Huntington's reputation among orthodox Christians since his death, is that famous posthumous production of his pen-Calvinism Improved. The mystery which overhangs this work has never been removed. When it was written, or with what aim, has never been shown. The work itself is a very distinct and able statement and defense of the doctrine of universal salvation.

I have heard old men who accepted the doctrines of the work, that Dr. Huntington preached good Universalism for twenty years, but in such a way that he was not suspected, except by those who relished it. The letter of Mr. Waldo, above quoted, gives us this statement; "I remember to have heard Dr. Hart, with whom he was in intimate relations, say that, in a conversation with him, Dr. Huntington raised objections against the doctrine of future punishment, professedly to see how he would answer them; and the same thing I was informed occurred in conversations with several others of his clerical brethren.

The letter of Dr. Abbot, quoted above, has this additional fact; "Some time before his death, he wrote a Dialogue on Universal Salvation, and sent it to a brother minister, who resided at some distance, requesting his remarks upon it."

Dr. Sprague himself testifies that after the work was published to the astonishment of everybody, "some of his," (Dr. Huntington's)" brethren recollected to have heard remarks from him, which, in the review, seemed of a dubious character."

It seems very clear, that for years the author had been persuaded of the incorrectness of the orthodox belief on this subject, and that he had been elaborating this exposition and defense as a justification of the position he would be called upon to take. That he would have given publicity to the work himself, had not a series of domestic bereavements and physical infirmities impaired his mental vigor, and prematurely brought him to his grave, the nice sense of honor which he uniformly showed, and the habitual freedom and independence of expression in which he indulged, are sufficient proofs.

The preface contains, also, his own explanation regarding his delay to publish the work. After stating that the work contained "a small part of a system of divinity, which the author has been meditating more than twenty years;" and also, that, "the author is quite beyond a doubt, in his own mind, with regard to the solid truth of his leading principles and arguments," he adds this explanation: " With respect to the due time of advancing this step forward, and so explicitly pouring in this additional light, he is not so positive.

I am in the same predicament, with regard to the due time of publication, that all men since the days of inspiration have been. Any author may misjudge, after his greatest possible exercise of judgment in the matter. Some have done it, as the great and learned Huss, who was one century before the due time, in attempting to pour in a flood of light upon the world. He offered nothing to the public but what was advanced in the next century by Luther and Calvin, and others, with glorious success." But the work itself, when published about a year after his death, was doomed to a very "limited circulation, -much the greater part of the edition having been consigned to the flames by one of his daughters." So effectual was the suppression of the work, that it is now almost impossible to find a copy.

The following are believed to be the only other published writings of Dr. Huntington. I copy the list from Dr. Sprague's work, having been unable to make any additions to it. A sermon on the vanity and mischief of presuming on things beyond our measure, delivered at Norwich, 1774; a plea before the ecclesiastical council at Stockbridge, in the case of Mrs. Fisk, excommunicated for marrying a profane man, 1779; an address to his Anabaptist brethren, 1783 ; an election sermon, 1784 ; a sermon at the instalment of the Rev. John Ellis, 1785, at Rehoboth, Mass.; a discourse at the interment of Capt. John Howard, of Hampton, 1789; thoughts on the atonement of Christ, 1791 ; and a sermon on the death of Mrs. Strong, 1793."