|
Hunt, John Shotwell
|
|
| LAST: Hunt
|
FIRST: John
|
MID: Shotwell
|
|
| GENDER: M
|
MAIDEN NAME:
|
TITLE:
|
|
| BORN: 11 Apr 1804
|
DIED: 27 Nov 1860
|
BURIED:
|
|
|
OCCUPATION: Gunsmith; Wagonmaker; Hotelier
|
|
| BIRTH PLACE: Smithfield, Wayne Co., Indiana
|
|
| DEATH PLACE: Salem, Marion Co., Oregon
|
|
NOTES:
1850 OR CENSUS - John S. Hunt, age 47, occupation farmer, b. Ohio, is enumerated with wife Temperance Hunt, age 46, b. North Carolina, along with Mary, age 25, b. Indiana, Geo. W., age 20, b. Indiana, John A., age 14, b. Indiana, Harrison, age 12, b. Indiana, Thomas Hunt, age 9, b. Indiana, and James, age 6, b. Indiana. Also enumerated with the family is George Riches, age 25, occupation carpenter, b. England.
MARRIAGE - “John Shotwell Hunt married to Mrs. Nancy A. Smith July 5, both of Marion County.” Oregon Spectator¸ July 17, 1851, 3:1.
1860 OR CENSUS - J. S. Hunt, age 58, occupation blacksmith, b. Ohio, is enumerated with N. Hunt, age 62, female, b. Kentucky, and J. Hunt, age 16, b. Iowa.
BIOGRAPHICAL (From Steeves, pp 93-95):
The name of Hunt originated at the time of William the Conqueror (See "Family of Hunt," by Sarah Hunt Steeves). The Hunt line, of which John S. was a descendant, dates back to about 1588, to Thomas Hunt, who was a colonel in Cromwell's army in 1645. He was born in England. Ralph Hunt, the Long Island columnist, was born in 1613, and died on Long Island in 1677. He came to America in 1635 at the age of 22 and married Elizabeth Ann Jessup, daughter of Edward Jessup of West Chester, New York.
Ralph Hunt, with several other Englishmen, settled in Long Island in the year 1852 and founded the town of Newton, now Elmhurst. He was one of the seven patentees to whom a grant of land was given by Governor-General Richard Nichols. Ralph Hunt was for many years one of the first magistrates of Newton, L. I.
Lieutenant Ralph Hunt was also known as "London" Ralph, to distinguish him from another by the same name. He was one of a party who purchased Middleburg, Long Island, his share of this purchase being one pound.
He was admitted as freeman of the colony of Connecticut, December 1666, and made a free holder of Newton, L. I., January 4, 1666-67. He was one of eleven landholders who agreed to enclose their land in a single field for cultivation. April 2, 1667, he was chosen constable. About 1668 his house, barns and all of his goods and effects were destroyed by fire, together with the corn he had collected for rates.
The first church edifice in Newton, Long Island, was erected upon a gore of land appropriated by Ralph Hunt. The site of this old church is at the corner of Main Street and Jamaica Road, Elmhurst, L. I.
The Hunt line is unbroken from Lieutenant Ralph Hunt, through Samuel, John, to Colonial Jonathan Hunt, the Revolutionary War patriot, who served his time so faithfully as a member of the Committee on Public Safety, for Rowan county, North Carolina, and who also gave 13 years of service as captain, in the Cherokee Indian wars of North Carolina (see "Family of Hunt," by Sarah Hunt Steeves).
Charles, the son of Colonel Jonathan, was the next western immigrant. He was married to Fancina Seagroves and they came to the Northwest Territory, now Ohio, in 1806. Charles was born near Hopewell, New Jersey, in 1741, and died at Liberty, Indiana, in 1818 He was a merchant of Salibury, N. C., before he moved to Ohio. Some of their family had preceded them and settled on the Whitewater, in Indiana.
Jonathan, son of Charles, was born in North Carolina and was married first, to a Mary Shotwell and, second, to Miss Abrams. He lies buried beside his wife and his parents in Elkhorn cemetery, near Liberty, Indiana.
John Shotwell, eldest son of Jonathan Hunt and wife, Mary Shotwell, was born in Wayne county, Indiana, April 11, 1803, and married Temperance Estep (or Esteb), may 8, 1823. She was born in Indiana, near Liberty, Jan 10, 1804, and died in Oregon, October 29, 1850. She was a daughter of Abraham and Hannah Humphreys Estep of Wayne Co., Indiana.
Abraham and Hannah Estep are buried in the little Elkhorn cemetery of Elkhorn Creek, near Liberty, Indiana, not far from Ridhmond, Indiana". Steeves, pg 94
Abraham and Hannah Estep are buried in the little Elkhorn cemetery on Elkhorn Creek, near Liberty, Indiana, nor far from Richmond, Indiana.
Temperence Estep Hunt, wife of John Shotwell Hunt, the subject of this sketch, was a woman of deep piety and blessed with a strong personality that stamped itself upon the lives and the memory of her children. It was said of her, at the time of her death, that her passing was unusually victorious - a fitting end for the beautiful life she had led. It was said that her face fairly shone with the hope of immortality.
John Shotwell Hunt was a deacon of the Baptist Church. He came from a long line of deacons of this same church, each in turn following in the footsteps of his parent. He was a gunsmith and wagon-maker by trade. His home was at Liberty, Indiana.
About the year 1845 he became financially embarrassed because of the depression of the "wildcat banks" of the times. He had traded largely and had placed about $50,000 in these banks. After the crash, he found himself virtually a poor man, with a large family and a delicate wife. About this time he recieved letters from the Hon. Thomas Benton and Henry Clay, encouraging him to go to the new Oregon country. He also had recieved encouragement from General Joel Palmer and from his Uncle James Hunt, who had been to Oregon previously; so rather than begin again in Indiana, surrounded by his well-to-do relatives and friends, he, with his wife and children, all but Hannah, who had married Samuel Goodwin, crossed the plains to Oregon in 1847.
Before John Shotwell Hunt moved out to Oregon his brothers James, Harrison H. and William had immigrated to Oregon. Harrison H. had hauled a sawmill across the plains in 1843 and set up operation on the Columbia river at a place called Cathlamet bay, or Clifton, as it was later called, where he built ships and traded with the Sandwich Islands, later called Hawaii. Upon the arrival in Oregon of the John Shotwell Hunt family, they first settled in the Waldo hills, about 12 miles east from Salem, Oregon.
After the death of Temperance, his wife, in 1850, he married, the second time, Mrs. Nancy Scott Wisdom, widow of Doctor Smith, who had died at the crossing of Green river, Wyoming, in 1847, en route to Oregon as captain of the train of two hundred wagons.
After his arrival in Oregon, John S. Hunt was established in the mercantile business, also engaging in his trade of gunsmith and wagonmaking and established the first mail route between Salem and his home postoffice, twelve miles east, called Lebanaon. In after years this was discontinued and another town in Linn county took the name. He burned the first brick kiln in the Waldo hills, on his farm. Following many of his sires, he was a Baptist deacon, as before mentioned, serving faithfully even after he arrived in Oregon.
It was at his house, on his donation land claim, at Lebanon, Marion county (then known as Champoeg county, Oregon), where the Lebanon Baptist church was organized in 1851, with five members and Rev. Richmond Cheadle as pastor. The services were usually held in the schoolhouse, and at first, the writer believes, Mr. Hunt's home was used as a sanctuary. A pioneer woman, in telling of this church, said that when the weather or roads permitted, a several days' session was sometimes held, and at that time the women and children all slept on the floor in Mr. Hunt's house, while the men went to the haymow in the barn.
Mr. Hunt established a school at his place and at one time his daughter Temperance was the teacher, and upon her marriage, Mr. Hunt finished out her term of school or taught until a regualr teacher could be found.
After his second marriage he left his farm (later known as the Henry Warren farm in the Waldo Hills) and engaged in the hotel business. At one time he kept the Bennett House and later bought the Cook Hotel in North Salem, where he died, November, 1860, aged 57 years, of paralysis. He lived for one year at Dallas, Polk county, Oregon, and one or two years at Sublimity, Marion county. At both places he plied his trade of funsmith and wagon-maker.
He and his first wife Temperance are buried in the Warren cemetery in Marion county, Oregon, about 12 miles east of Salem, on his old farm. This cemetery is now called Mt. Hope [his second wife, Nancy, is buried at Lone Fir, AKA Anderson Cemetery, east of Salem, in Marion Co., Oregon, next to her second husband, Doctor W. Smith]
His children by his wife Temperance Estep were as follows:
Noah William, who died in childhood, aged 8 years.
George Washington, who married Nancy Elizabeth Smith.
John Abram, who married Mary Ellen Ammon.
Johanthan Harrison, who married Lucinda Morley.
Thomas Benton, who died in Young manhood.
James Tarkington, who married, first, Matilda Ammon; second Anna Spray.
Hannah Humphreys, who married Samuel Goodwin.
Mary Shotwell, who married George Ritchie [Riches].
Temperence Estep, who married John Downing.
BIOGRAPHICAL (From A History of the Silverton Country, pg 42):
A notable body of men were those pioneers of 1847 who settled in the Silverton and Waldo Hills. Ralph C. Geer has already been named. A brother, Heman J. Geer, was the father of Theodore Thurston Geer, governor of Oregon. His mother was Cynthia Ann, the daughter of John Leonard Eoff, who settled near English's mill on Howell's Prairie. Abner S. Willard was a relative and near neighbor of the Geer's. George P. S. Riches, an Englishman, took a claim which had been first settled by William Rankin McCord, who relinquished to him. King Hibbard and John S. Hunt would be outstanding men in any community. When they are added to the already noteworthy group which has began in the Waldo Hills settlement of Daniel Waldo, it begins to be apparent why this section in an early day was able to contribute so much to the history of the state."
DISCREPANCY - Marker gives date of death as 27 Nov, obit as 25 Nov.
DISCREPANCY - Birth date given in biographical sketch is 11 Apr 1803, but calculations from age and date of death on marker gives year of birth as 1804.
|
|
OBITUARY:
Died – In Salem, on the 25th of November of paralysis, John S. Hunt, of Marion County, aged 58 years.
Weekly Oregon Statesman 3 Dec 1860 2:7.
|
|
INSCRIPTION:
John S. Hunt
Died
Nov. 27
1860
Aged 56 Y's
7 M's 16 D's
A consistent Christian
An affectionate Husband
A kind Father
|
|
SOURCES:
Hellie, Mader & Rickey
Saucy
1850 OR TERRITORY CENSUS (Marion Co., FA #256)
1860 OR CENSUS (Marion Co., Sublimity, FA 2850)
WOS 3 Dec 1860 2:7
Steeves, pp 93-96
Down, Robert Horace, A History of the Silverton Country, pg 42
|
|
| SECTION: A
|
LOT:
|
|
|
IMAGES:
|
|
