Background
Abijah Hunt was born in 1762 in New Jersey.
Abijah Hunt was born in 1762 in New Jersey.
He had two brothers, Jeremiah Hunt and Jess Hunt. Hunt moved from New Jersey to Cincinnati, Ohio to work as a merchant supplying the United States Army soldiers stationed at Fort Washington there. Wagoners hauled the goods to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they were loaded onto flatboats and floated down the Ohio River to be sold in Cincinnati.
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. Abijah Hunt made a small fortune providing supplies to the soldiers in Cincinnati.
In 1798, Hunt moved to the Natchez District of Mississippi. He lived in Greenville (now defunct) in Jefferson County.
With Elijah Smith, he opened general stores and public cotton gins in the market towns of Natchez, Washington, Greenville, Portuguese Gibson, Big Black, and Bayou Pierre.
He charged a ten percent commission to planters for processing their cotton at his public cotton gins. In addition to operating a cotton brokerage, the Hunt and Smith firm sold a range of retail goods. lieutenant also transported logs and cotton bales to market.
Hunt invested his money in land, developing cotton plantations in Adams, Jefferson and Claiborne counties along the Mississippi River.
Plantations were on the riverfront for water and transportation access. Hunt 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.
By 1805, Hunt was the largest merchant in Mississippi. Politically, Hunt was a Federalist.
In 1799, he was appointed as Deputy United States Postmaster of the Mississippi Territory.
In this capacity, he made sure that all mail from Natchez would reach Nashville, Tennessee. Hunt continued to buy and sell real estate. In 1807, Winthrop Sargent bought Bellevue Plantation in Adams County from Hunt and renamed it Gloucester.
In 1808, Hunt sold a plantation on the Bayou Pierre in Claiborne County, complete with 60 or 61 slaves.
After Hunt died in 1811, the inventory of his estate listed his 60 slaves by name. David Hunt eventually became one of twelve millionaires in the Natchez area in the antebellum era.
The latter went on to have a successful political career, serving as Governor of Mississippi. The younger man sold the stores to buy more land.
David Hunt eventually owned 25 plantations, which included Homewood, Lansdowne, and Buena Vista.
He became one of 12 millionaires in the Natchez District in the antebellum era, when the total number of millionaires in the United States was 35.