Hunt

ments for the Unexperienced Planters of New
England," Travels and Works of Captain John
Smith, 1910, ed. by Edward Arber, II, 958). The
patent issued to Hakluyt and Hunt, mentioned
above, indicates that Hakluyt probably had a
hand in the appointment

Contemporary references to Hunt agree in
characterizing him as a man of the highest char-
acter and the most unselfish devotion. He sailed
with the other members of the expedition on
Dec. 19, 1606, but adverse winds kept them for
six weeks in sight of England, "all which time/'
says a member of the party, "Master Hunt our
preacher, was so weake and sicke, that few ex-
pected his recovery. Yet although he were but
twentie myles from his habitation (the time we
were in the Downes) and notwithstanding the
stormy weather, nor the scandalous imputations
(of some few, little better then Atheists, of the
greatest ranke amongst us) suggested against
him, all this could never force from him so much
as a seeming desire to leaue the business"
(Travels and Works of Captain John Smith f II,
386)* At sea and on the land he was the peace-
maker of the contentious company, with the
"water of patience, . . . godly exhortations
(but chiefly through his devoted examples),"
quenching the flames of envy and dissension.
After the arrival at Jamestown, he ministered at
first under a sail attached to trees; later, in a
"homely thing like a barne," which served as a
church. As long as he lived the settlers had
prayers morning and evening, two sermons on
Sundays, and Holy Communion every three
months. In the fire that occurred Jan. 17, 1608,
the church, all Hunt's books, and everything he
had but the clothes on his back were consumed,
yet none ever heard him repine at his losses. The
physical hardships soon proved too severe for
him, however, and he died shortly prior to June
12, 1608, probably, since his will was probated
July 14 (o.s.), 1608, and the last vessel, before
that date, which could have brought the news of
his death, left Virginia June 12.

[A copy of Hunt's will may be found in the Va. Mag.
of Hist, and 8io$.t XXV, i6r (Apr. 1917). Other ref-

Ptircbas, Hakfaytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pit-
ffrimes (MaeLeiosc, Glasgow, 1906), vol. XVIII j J.
S. M* Anderson, Hist, of the Ck. of Eng. iť the Colonies
(1845), vo!, I; F, L, Hawks, Contributions to the
8ttl*siasticol Hist, of the U. 5. A., vol. I (1836) ; E.
I* Goodwia* The Colonial Ch. in Fa, (1927); Alex-
aate Brown, The Genesis of the U. S. (2 vets., 1890),]

H.E.S.

HONT, ROBERT WOOLSTON (Dec, 9,
iBJHdy xi, 1923), metallurgist, was born at
Faffisiogtoo, Sticks County, Pau, the son of Rob-

Hunt

ert A. Hunt, a physician, and Martha Lancaster
(Woolston) Hunt. After his father's death in
1855, young Hunt continued, for two years, the
small drugstore in Covington, Ky., which his
father had established after his retirement from
medical practice in Trenton, N. J. His mother
then moved to Pottsville, Pa., and Hunt found
employment for several years at the iron rolling
mill of John Burnish & Company, where he
learned the practical side of the work. Upon the
completion of a course in analytical chemistry in
the laboratory of Booth, Garrert & Blair of
Philadelphia, he established in 1860 at the plant
of the Cambria Iron Company, Johnstown, Pa.,
the first analytical laboratory to form an integral
department of an iron works.

In 1861 he entered military service, at Camp
Curtin in Harrisburg, Pa., and in 1864 he
was instrumental in recruiting Lambert's Inde-
pendent Company, with which he served. Upon
being mustered out at the close of the war, he
returned to the Cambria Iron Company, and was
sent to their plant at Wyandotte, Mich,, where
experiments were being made with the Bessemer
steel process. He was in charge of this work
until May 1866 when he was called back to
Johnstown, where the erection of a Bessemer
plant was then contemplated. Its construction
was delayed, however, and Hunt rolled for the
Pennsylvania Railroad, with Bessemer steel from
the Pennsylvania Steel Company, the first com-
mercial order for steel rails (1867). He then
assisted John Fritz and Alexander Lyman Hoi-
ley [qq.v.] in the design and erection of the
Cambria Bessemer steel plant, of which, upon
its completion in July 1871, he assumed charge.
In September 1873 he moved to Troy, N. Y.,
where he became superintendent of the Bessemer
steel plant of John A. Griswold & Company and
in 1875, general superintendent of the combina-
tion formed by this company and Erastus Corn-
ing & Company which resulted finally in the
Troy Iron & Steel Company. Hunt remained
in charge until 1888 when he established at Chi-
cago the firm of Robert W. Hunt & Company,
consulting engineers. He completely rebuilt vari-
ous works and erected large blast-furnace plants.
He also invented, and with Wendel and Stippis
patented, the very widely adopted automatic rail
mills.

Hunt was an important contributor to technical
literature, his "History of the Bessemer Manu-
facture in America" (Transactions of the Amer-
ican Institute of Mining Engineers, vol. V, 1877)
and his "Evolution of the American Rolling
Miir (Transactions of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers, vol XIII, 1892) being

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