John Webster Perit Huntington papers, 1855-1889

John Webster Perit Huntington was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1831. He emigrated to Oregon around 1849, residing first in Oregon City and in Polk County, where he was a farmer and teacher. He moved to Yoncalla in Douglas County (then Umpqua County), where he took a land claim and returned to farming, and married Mary Applegate in 1857. Huntington was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in 1860. He was appointed as Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, and subsequently moved to Salem. He was reappointed by President Andrew Johnson in 1867. During his tenure as superintendent, he wrote an 1865 treaty with the tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation amending the 1855 agreement that had established the reservation. The later treaty contained provisions restricting tribal members' movements off the reservation and relinquishing off-reservation hunting and fishing rights that the tribes had negotiated in 1855. The treaty was ratified in 1867 but never enforced by the government or observed by the tribes. Federal courts later found the restrictions to be unenforceable, and the treaty was nullified by the U.S. Congress in 2020.

In addition to serving as superintendent for Indian Affairs, Huntington acquired a stake in the Oregon Statesman newspaper in Salem in 1863, and briefly operated the Salem Unionist, which he had purchased in 1868. Huntington died in Salem in 1869, at age 37.

Sources: Collection materials; "Death of Mr. Huntington [From the Unionist of Friday]," Oregonian, June 5, 1869, Page 2; "Yoncalla, Home of the Eagles," by Anne Applegate Kruse (1950); "Treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon," by Ward Tonsfeldt and Paul G. Claeyssens, Oregon History Project, 2004, https://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/narratives/central-oregon-adaptation-and-compromise-in-an-arid-landscape/finding-central-oregon/treaty-with-the-tribes-of-middle-oregon/; "An Act to nullify the supplemental treaty between the United States of America and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of Indians of Middle Oregon, concluded on November 15, 1865," 134 Stat. 1848, Public Law 116-175, 116th Congress, October 20, 2020 (accessed April 8, 2025), https://www.congress.gov/116/plaws/publ175/PLAW-116publ175.pdf; "Written testimony of Ron Suppah, Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, before the Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Indigenous People of the United States, United States House of Representatives, regarding H.R. 1803, June 5, 2019" (accessed April 8, 2025), https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/109569/witnesses/HHRG-116-II24-Wstate-SuppahR-20190605.pdf; "History of Oregon Newspapers," by George S. Turnbull (Portland, Oregon: Binfords & Mort, 1939)