Horace S. Hunter

HUNTER

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 5/31/2021 at 14:33:18

Horace S. Hunter

Horace S. Hunter, a prominent resident of section 5, Douglas township, Sac county, Iowa, is an early settler of the county, and one of her ex-soldiers. He was born in Franklin County, Vermont, July 28, 1834, a son of Alanson, also born in Vermont, where he was the son of Timothy, who was born in New England of some those who settled there in the earliest times. The mother of our subject had been named Sarah Malory, and was a native of Vermont, born of an old Vermont family. In 1846, when our subject was a boy of twelve years, the family removed to Huron County, Ohio, and there the father died at the age of thirty-four, and the mother in Benzie County, Michigan. She had been born in 1806, hence was seventy-seven years old at her decease, and in religion a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. At the death of Mr. Hunter there was a family of wife and seven children, five sons and two daughters, and all five sons testified to their love of country by enlisting in the late war. Our subject entered the One Hundred and Thirtieth Ohio Infantry; Stephen W., was in the Ninth Illinois Cavalry, and now lives in Henry county, Ohio; Hiram A., the Thirteenth Ohio Infantry. He was captured and spent fourteen terrible months in Andersonville and Libby prisons; Orren C. was a member of the Old Ninth Indiana Infantry, and lives in Michigan; Milo C. was in the One Hundred and Thirtieth Ohio Infantry, and lives at Lake Charles, Louisiana; Hiram A. lives in Wood County, Ohio. The mother married a second time, becoming Mrs. Ephraham Lewis. Our subject’s father was a carpenter by trade and also engaged in farming. In politics he was a Whig. In 1845 our subject removed to Porter County, Indiana, and was living there at the outbreak of the war, in 1863 moving to Ohio. He enlisted in Company I, One Hundred and Thirtieth Ohio Infantry, and was sent to Johnson’s Island to guard rebel prisoners there and at other points, and was honorably discharged after the war, and settled in Wood County, Ohio, but in 1869 he came to Sac County, Iowa. He first rented land, but in 1872 he bought eighty acres of wild land. He has prospered and is now a man of independent means, owning 400 acres of fine land, with all his surroundings of houses, barns, lots, sheds, meadows, orchards and lawns, in fine shape. His residence is one of the pleasant ones which attract the traveler through the rural districts of the State of Iowa. It is one and one-half stories in height, with dimensions of 16 x 20 feet, with an addition of 20 x 12 feet. His choice orchard and grove contains eight acres. The commodious barn is 32 x 54 feet, the cattle barn, 32 x 38 feet, and the hog barn, convenient for the swine. A great modern windmill supplies water for the stock. On section 6 our subject has erected a new frame house, of a story and a half, 14 x 18 feet, with an addition of 16 x 18, and here there is a fine orchard and grove of five acres, and in 1892 our subject, on this place, fed 100 head of cattle.
Mr. Hunter was married March 6, 1853, in Porter County, Indiana, near Valparaiso, to Laura A. Dell, a native of Huron county, Ohio, and a daughter of Solomon and Eliza R. (Fay) Dell. Mrs. Hunter was reared in Coshocton County, Ohio. The mother of Mrs. Hunter died in Indiana at the age of seventy-six. The latter is a Deacon in the Christian Church. He is the father of three sons and three daughters. One son, Jesse, was a member of an Indiana regiment during the war. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter were the parents of six children, as follows: Eliza Ann Rodda, who has four children; W. H. has one child; John C. lives on a farm of 160 acres; Charles A.; Harry and Forrest. One daughter, Sarah Ellen, the wife of Frank Peek, died, leaving one boy, named Claude E. Politically, our subject is a Republican, and has honorably held the position of Township Trustee, Clerk, Justice of the Peace, Assessor and Treasurer. He is a member or the G. A. R., Newell Post, No. 416.
Source: Biographical History of Crawford, Ida, and Sac Counties, Iowa, 1893, p.576