Abijah Hunt

Abijah Hunt
"Duel" Lancaster Intelligencer, July 19, 1811
Born1762
New Jersey
DiedJune 11, 1811
Mississippi Territory
Cause of deathShot in a duel
Occupation(s)Merchant, planter, slave trader, banker
Political partyFederalist
RelativesJeremiah Hunt (brother)
Jesse Hunt (brother)
John Wesley Hunt (cousin)
David Hunt (nephew)

Abijah Hunt (1762–1811) was an American merchant, planter, slave trader, and banker in the Natchez District.

Early life

Abijah Hunt was born in 1762 in New Jersey.[1][2] Two of his brothers were Jeremiah Hunt and Jesse Hunt.[1]

Career

Abijah moved from New Jersey to Cincinnati, Ohio to work as a merchant supplying the United States Army soldiers stationed at Fort Washington there.[3] He worked with his brothers (Jeremiah and Jesse), buying goods on credit in Philadelphia and New York City.[1][3] Wagoners hauled the goods to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they were loaded onto flatboats and floated down the Ohio River to be sold in Cincinnati.[1][3] He made a small fortune providing supplies to the soldiers in Cincinnati.[4]

In 1795 Abijah helped his cousin, John Wesley Hunt, set up a similar merchant business in nearby Lexington, Kentucky.[3][5] The Hunts obtained some of their goods by trading with each other. John would send Abijah "bacon, butter, cheese, salt, tobacco, whiskey, and horses" from Lexington, while Abijah would send John "leather, shoes, and nails" from Cincinnati.[3][6]

In 1798, Abijah moved to the Natchez District of Mississippi.[1] In 1800 Governor Winthrop Sargent issued a notice to Indian agents in the Chickasaw lands that "specially requested to afford unto the post riders of Mr. Abijah Hunt (who has contracted to carry the mail from Natchez to Knoxville) all the aid and protection in their power consistent with their general duty and instructions…February 28, 1800."[7] He reportedly built the first cotton gin in Greenville around 1808, which was in active use until 1848.[8] He invested some of his money in land, developing cotton plantations in Adams, Jefferson and Claiborne counties.[1] He also developed a profitable slave-trading business with John, Jeremiah, and Jesse Hunt beginning in 1800. John would ship the slaves from Kentucky to Mississippi, where Abijah predicted he could get an average of $500 for them (versus about $300 in Kentucky).[9]

With Elijah Smith, Abijah opened general stores and public cotton gins in the market towns of Natchez, Washington, Greenville, Port Gibson, Big Black, and Bayou Pierre.[1][2] By 1805, Hunt was the largest merchant in Mississippi.[10] Hunt and Smith charged a ten percent commission to planters for processing their cotton at his public cotton gins.[1] Additionally, the Hunt and Smith firm operated a cotton brokerage and transported logs and cotton bales to market.[2] Thus, Abijah created a kind of vertical monopoly, making a profit in every area of the cotton business: growing it on his plantations, processing it at his public cotton gins, and selling it through his brokerage.[1]

Hunt was involved in other business enterprises. In 1799, Abijah was appointed as deputy U.S. postmaster of the Mississippi Territory.[1] In this capacity, he made sure that all mail from Natchez would reach Nashville, Tennessee.[1] In 1809, he was a co-founder of the Bank of Mississippi.[1]

Abijah sold a couple of his plantations. In 1807, Winthrop Sargent bought Bellevue Plantation in Adams County from Hunt and renamed it Gloucester.[11] In 1808, Hunt sold a plantation on the Bayou Pierre in Claiborne County, complete with 60 or 61 slaves.[12]

Abijah lived in Greenville (now defunct) in Jefferson County.[4] Politically, he was a Federalist.[1][2][10] He hired his nephew, David Hunt, also from New Jersey, to work in one of his stores.[10] A Jefferson County local historian lionized him in an article published in the 1880s, writing that Abijah and David Hunt "controlled most of the business of [Old Greenville] and surroundings. They had stores in different parts of the county for the accommodation of the people. In 1807, while there was an embargo on different articles of prime necessity to our people, particularly cotton cards, Abijah Hunt, with his great foresight, sent to England and had 300 pair shipped to him here. Those cards were given away to the different settlers who had none. This was characteristic of the man, and has been so of the family ever since. Abijah Hunt was greatly loved by the whole people. Hunt had the misfortune, in 1811, to fight a duel with Gov. Poindexter, and was killed. Thus passed away one of our most noble and enterprising men, and one who had done what few would or could dare to do."[13]

Death

Hunt died June 9[14] or June 11, 1811,[15] at the age of 49, two or three days after he was shot during a duel with Democratic Republican opponent George Poindexter. The latter went on to have a successful political career, serving as Governor of Mississippi.[1][2][10] The inventory of Abijah's estate listed his 60 slaves by name.[16] Hunt's nephew, David Hunt, inherited his land and businesses, selling the stores to buy more land.[2][10] David gradually built this inheritance into his own much larger inventory of plantations.[2][17] He eventually owned 25 plantations, which included Homewood, Lansdowne, and Buena Vista.[18] Consequently, David Hunt became one of the twelve millionaires in the Natchez area in the antebellum era.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n A Guide to the Abijah Hunt Papers, 1800-1821, 1880, The University of Texas at Austin: Briscoe Center for American History
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h D. Clayton James, Antebellum Natchez, Louisiana State University Press, 1993, p. 157, 158 [1]
  3. ^ a b c d e Karl Raitz, Nancy O'Malley, Kentucky's Frontier Highway: Historical Landscapes Along the Maysville Road, Louisville, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2012, p. 120 [2]
  4. ^ a b Rowland, Dunbar (1907). Encyclopedia of Mississippi History (Volume one of two volumes ed.). Madison, Wisconsin: Southern Historical Press. p. 908.
  5. ^ Ramage, James (2015). John Wesley Hunt, Pioneer Merchant, Manufacturer, and Financier (Paperback ed.). University Press of Kentucky. p. 22. ISBN 978-0813150321.
  6. ^ John Dean Wright, Lexington: Heart of the Bluegrass, Louisville, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1982, p. 23 [3]
  7. ^ Menck, Mary (2017). The Devil's Backbone: Race, Space, and Nation-Building on the Natchez Trace (M.A. thesis). Medford, Massachusetts: Tufts University. p. 21.
  8. ^ "David and Abijah Hunt". The Clarion. 1886-08-04. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  9. ^ Blaakman, Michael A.; Conroy-Krutz, Emily; Arista, Noelani (2023-03-21). The Early Imperial Republic: From the American Revolution to the U.S.–Mexican War. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 58–60. ISBN 978-0-8122-9775-1.
  10. ^ a b c d e Gary D. Joiner, Cheryl H. White, Historic Haunts of Shreveport, The History Press, 2010, pp. 73-74 [4]
  11. ^ "United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Inventory Nomination Form". nps.gov. National Park Services. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  12. ^ Libby, David J. (2004). Slavery and Frontier Mississippi, 1720-1835. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 52. ISBN 9781604730500. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  13. ^ "Recollections of Some of the First Settlers of Jefferson County by A. H. Watkins". The Clarion-Ledger. 1886-08-04. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-08-17.
  14. ^ "New Jersey Deaths and Burials, 1720-1988", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FZ77-52Z  : 19 January 2020), Abijah Hunt, 1811.
  15. ^ "Notes on Concordia Parish". Tensas gazette. 1931-07-31. p. 5. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  16. ^ "Mississippi Probate Records, 1781-1930". Family Search. Adams County Probate packets 1802-1829, box 20-21, images 1545-1553. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  17. ^ Louisiana State University Libraries: DAVID HUNT LETTERS
  18. ^ Kane, Harnett T. (1947). Natchez on the Mississippi. William Morrow & Company. pp. 174–189.