Memoirs of William and Nathan Hunt: Taken Chiefly From Their Journals and Letters (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Memoirs of William and Nathan Hunt: Taken Ch...)
Excerpt from Memoirs of William and Nathan Hunt: Taken Chiefly From Their Journals and Letters
Esther Tuke's Letter to William Hunt's Children Lines to the Memory of Samuel Fothergill, William Hunt, and John Woolman.
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Nathan Hunt was a Quaker preacher and pioneer in education.
Background
Hunt was born in Guilford County, N. C. in 1758. He was the son of William Hunt, a distinguished Quaker preacher who was born in 1733 in Rancocas, N. J. His mother's maiden name was Sarah Mills. The father died of smallpox while on a religious mission in England in 1772.
Education
Nathan received a meager school education, but possessed a mind of strong native capacity and by means of extensive reading and much meditation and reflection became a leader in his community and in his religious denomination.
Career
His power as a preacher developed late in life. Although he began to speak in public meetings at the age of twenty-seven, he was not recorded a minister until he was thirty-five. From that time until old age weakened him he was an almost constant traveler and itinerant preacher. A mystic and seer rather than a reflective and argumentative preacher, he had sudden "insights" and "saw" into the state and condition of individuals and meetings.
During the years 1820-21 he traveled in England, Ireland, and Scotland where large audiences, both Quaker and non-Quaker, came to hear his messages. He became the intimate and beloved friend of such distinguished men in England as the great chemist, William Allen, and the famous banker, Samuel Gurney. For some years previous to its opening in 1837 he was chairman of a committee to found and direct the New Garden Boarding School, which has since grown into Guilford College. He secured many contributions to the funds for this enterprise both in the United States and abroad.
He was a powerful opponent of slavery in the midst of a slave-holding people. When the opposition, led by the conservative John Wilbur, of Westerly, R. I, to the "evangelical" teachings of the English Quaker Joseph John Gurney, was causing dissension and division in various parts of the country, Hunt was instrumental in preventing a "separation" in North Carolina.
(Excerpt from Memoirs of William and Nathan Hunt: Taken Ch...)
Connections
He married Martha Ruckman in 1778 and settled on the paternal farm which was near the Revolutionary battlefield of Guilford Court House. The family suffered serious financial losses on the occasion of the conflict. His first wife died in 1789 leaving six children, and three years later he married Prudence Thornburgh, by which union there were two children.