Hunt

Episcopal Church and a prominent lay delegate
to many of its conventions. He was interested
in agriculture and devoted much of his time and
effort to administering his large landholdings.
He died in New York City,

[C. Z. Lincoln, ed., State of N. Y.: Messages from
the Governors (1909), vol. IV; D. S. Alexander, A
Pol. Hist, of the State of N. Y., vols, II (1906) and
III (1909); P. A. Chadbotirne and W. B. Moore, eds.,
The Pub. Services of the State of N. Y.: Hist., Statis-
tical, Descriptive and Biog. (1882); T. W. Barnes,
"Memoir of Thurlow Weed" (1884), which is Vol. II
of the Life of Thurlow Weed; C. E. Fitch, Encyc. of
Bfoff. of N, Y. (1916), vol. I; S. J. Wiley and W. S.
Gamer, Biog. and Portrait Cyc. of Niagara County, N.
F. (1895) ; T. B. Wyraan, Geneal. of the Name and
Family of Hunt (1862-63); N. Y. Times, Feb. 3,
1867.] HJ.C.

HUNT, WILLIAM GIBBES (Feb. 21,1791-
Aug. 13, 1833), editor, literary journalist, the
eldest child of Samuel and Elizabeth (Gibbes)
Shepherd Hunt, was born at Boston, Mass. His
father, a descendant of Enoch Hunt of Titenden,
Buckinghamshire, who was admitted freeman of
Newport, R. I,, in 1638, was a graduate of Har-
vard and the third of his line who studied at that
college; his mother was the daughter of William
Gibbes, a wealthy planter of Charleston, S. C.
Hunt was educated in Boston under his father
and Caleb Bingham, and at the age of fifteen he
entered Harvard College where he received the
degree of AJB. in 1810. After graduation he
practised law for a time although it is not known
where he received his legal training. In the
spring of 1815 he emigrated to the Ohio Valley,
settling at Lexington, Ky., then the seat of West-
ern culture. On Aug. 25 of that year he became
the editor of the Western Monitor, a Federalist
paper of which Thomas T. Skillman was pub-
lisher. With the issue for May 25, 1819, it be-
came the Western Monitor and Lexington Ad-
vertiser.

On Hunt's next undertaking, the Western
Review and Miscellaneous Magazine, rests the
principal source of his fame. The periodical was
not much more successful, financially, than its
predecessor, but the fault lay neither with the
editor nor with the magazine itself. Despite its
pedantry and its provincial character, it stands
out as one of the best of its kind in the early
West In the short two years of its existence it
was a literary spokesman of the region. It car-
ried reviews of contemporary writings in Amer-
ica ajotd England, poems by local and more
celebrated authors, occasional disquisitions on
politics, a series of stories of Indian fights, and
other notes and articles. Horace Holley, the
president of Transylvania University, and Con-
stantine Rafioesqtte were among its faithful am-
tribotars. Perhaps the Reviews outstanding ar-

Hunt
tide was Rafinesque's "Natural History of the
Fishes of the Ohio River" which in 1820 was
published by Hunt in book form under the title
Ichthyologia Ohiensis and as such constitutes his
outstanding publication. According to Mott
(post, p. 312), after the Review ceased publica-
tion, Hunt "apparently . . . began immediately
thereafter the publication of a venture with a
different appeal—the Masonic 'Miscellany and
Ladies' Literary Magazine (1821-23)."
In 1822 Hunt received the degree of LL.B.
from Transylvania, and though he practised law
a little during the next few years, his chief in-
terests continued to be in journalism. Later he
removed to Nashville, Tenn., where he formed a
partnership with John S. Simpson to publish the
Nashville Banner. In May 1826 it united with
the Nashville Whig to form the Nashville Ban-
ner and Nashville Whig. In 1830, with his broth-
er, W. Hassell Hunt, and Peter Tardiff, Hunt
purchased the paper and in 1831 it became the
National Banner and Nashville Advertiser. Re-
gardless of its name, it was a strong Jacksonian
organ. Hunt came into some national promi-
nence in these years as an ardent supporter of
Freemasonry during the Anti-Masonic excite-
ment. He remained at the head of the Banner
until 1833. He was a strong advocate of the
classical tradition in literature, and his few writ-
ings, mainly of an editorial nature, are simple,
forceful, and vigorous. His outstanding address
was that delivered at Nashville upon the occasion
of the deaths of Jefferson and Adams, July 4,
1826. He died in 1833 survived by his wife,
Fanny Wrigglesworth Hunt, whom he had mar-
ried on Sept 28, 1820, in Lexington.
[W. H. Venable, Beginnings of Lit. Culture in the
Ohio Valley (1891); R. L. Rusk, The Lit. of the Middle
Western Frontier (1925), vol. I; C. S. Brigham, "A
Bibliog. of Am. Newspapers (1690-1820)," Proc. Am.
Antiquarian Soc., Oct. '1914; F. L. Mott, A Hist, of
Am. Magazines (1930); T* B. Wyman, Geneal. of the
Name and Family of Hunt (1862-63) ; Harvard Uni-
versity records; the Columbian Centinel (Boston), Aug.
29, 1810; the Nashville Republican, Aug. 15, 1833.]
E.L.W.H.
HUNT, WILLIAM HENRY (June 12,1823-
Feb. 27,1884), jurist, secretary of the navy, dip-
lomat, the son of Thomas and Louisa (Gaillard)
Hunt, was born at Charleston, S. C. His father,
of English West India colonial ancestry, was
born in Nassau, New Providence, and came to
the United States about 1800. On his mother's
side he was descended from an old Huguenot
family which had settled near Charleston about
1680. Thomas Hunt died in 1832, leaving the
family in straitened circumstances. The mother
was sent to New Haven, Conn., with her five
daughters and two younger sons, one of whom