Hunt (William Morris) is born in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The son of U.S. Rep. Jonathan and Jane (Leavitt) Hunt and older brother of architect Richard Morris Hunt, William Morris Hunt moves with his family to Boston in 1840, graduates from Harvard College, and studies in Paris He returns to Boston, and subsequently moves to 171 1/2 Tremont Street in 1875. Hunt teaches art, introduces the Barbizon School to Boston, and becomes the leading portraitist of his time. He dies on the Isle of Shoals, New Hampshire, on September 8, 1879