Cumberland County, Maine - Professor Lucian Hunt, A. M.
**********************************************************************
USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any
format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons
or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent
of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact
the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has
given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free
access. http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb

This copy contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:
C. Wendland SilverDrusilla@aol.com
Copyright © 2005 by C. Wendland
Caitlin's Gold Award Project, Girl Scouts USA, Rio Grande Girl Scout Council,
El Paso, Texas
**********************************************************************

Biography
Professor Lucian Hunt, A. M.
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 465-467


Professor Lucian Hunt, A. M., is a New England man in the fullest sense of the
term, his birth having occurred in Vermont, the substantial foundation for his
liberal education having been laid in New Hampshire, his degree of A. M.
obtained in the Wesleyan University of Connecticut, and many years of his
professional life spent in the States of Massachusetts and Maine, the town of
Gorham, in Cumberland County, Maine, being in these latter years his place of
residence.

The name of Hunt is very ancient, being known all over the civilized world, the
American family originating in England, whence the emigrant ancestor came to
Massachusetts, locating in Amesbury. Subsequently three brothers bearing this
patronymic removed to New Hampshire, two of them, Humphrey and William, going to
Guilford, the other, Philip, removing to Sanbornton. There he married and reared
a family of twelve children, his son Philip, the eldest-born, inheriting the
homestead. He, too, married there; and, of the eleven children born to him and
his wife, Anthony Colby, father of Professor Hunt, was the seventh in succession
of birth.

Anthony C. Hunt was a farmer by occupation, carrying on his labors in different
places, residing a few years successively in Gilmanton, Sanbornton, and the
Weirs. When but eighteen years old he married Mary Chase, who was of nearly the
same age, and was the daughter of Parker Chase, then of Deerfield, N. H. While
this young couple were living in Sanbornton, their daughter Sarah and their
eldest son, Lucian, who lived but five years, were born. In 1815 Mr. Anthony C.
Hunt, in company with several others from that place, among them Mr. Parker
Chase, with several of his sons and daughters and their families, removed to
Woodbury, Vt., where they lived in a most primitive style for some years. Mr.
Hunt first built a rude log house in the midst of the primeval forest; and here
Lucian, named for the little son they had buried, was born, and here he spent
his first years. The settlement flourished but a few years, the distant markets,
the severe privations, and the scarcity of the necessaries of life driving the
colonists to more civilized regions, Anthony C. Hunt and his family spending a
few years in the neighboring town of Cabot before returning to Sanbornton, where
both he and his wife passed their remaining days, he dying at seventy-five years
of age, and she living to the venerable age of eighty-seven.

Lucian Hunt was from his earliest years fond of books and study, and after his
removal to Sanbornton Bridge he had an excellent opportunity for satisfying his
intellectual ambitions. Under the wise instructions of the Rev. Enoch Corser,
for those times a classical scholar of more than ordinary gifts and attainments,
he began to study Latin, commencing with the grammar in the spring, and in the
fall of the same year finishing  Virgil's AEneid, which he reviewed the
following winter during his first term as a teacher in the public schools. He
was also a pupil for a time of Professor Dyer H. Sanborn. At the early age of
sixteen Lucian Hunt began teaching, his first school being in the Bay Hill
District, Northfield, where he was again engaged for the second winter. He then
was urged to take charge of the school in the centre of Northfield; but, as this
was a particularly hard position, his friends advised him to decline.
Nevertheless, he accepted the invitation, and taught three winters, meeting with
eminent success, resigning then to take a school in Natick, Mass., where he
taught three winters, being subsequently a teacher in Kingston, Mass., for a
year. During all of this time the future Professor was earnestly continuing his
studies, reading Latin far beyond the college requirements and making notable
advancement in Greek, French, and German, besides pursuing the English branches,
paying his own way, as he did later in going through college, being neither
harassed by debts nor by charitable donations while taking his college course.
When his funds were too heavily drawn upon, he went to Boston during the summer,
and there earned enough to take him through the ensuing college year. He was
graduated from Wesleyan .University, Middletown, Conn., in 1863.

Mr. Hunt was for a time undecided as to his future career, being somewhat
inclined toward the study of law, but finally accepted the charge of the academy
at Marlow, N. H., a school which was apparently fast approaching its
dissolution. Under his enthusiastic administration new life was infused, the
number of pupils, which at first barely numbered a score, being increased during
the second year to one hundred and forty; and, had the capacity of the building
been greater, it would have reached two hundred, as one class was refused
admittance owing to the limited accommodations. This was partly due to Professor
Hunt's success in procuring competent assistants, Miss Mary Clough being his
preceptress and the Hon. George C. Hubbard the teacher of mathematics. Many men
since prominent in literary, professional, and political circles have been
pupils of Professor Hunt, being students either at this academy or in some of
the other schools which he has had in charge, among the number worthy of mention
being Judge Hardy, the Hon. Mr. Hammond, the late Sanborn Tenney, Professor of
Natural History at Williams College, President Andrews of Brown University, and
Rufus Williams, Professor of Chemistry at the English High School in Boston.

Professor Hunt afterward taught two years in the academy at Standish, this
State, going thence to Boston, where he was engaged for several years in the
Eliot School. His health becoming impaired, he then rested from his labors two
years, when he accepted the principalship of Powers's Institute at Bernardston,
Mass., which he resigned five years later to take charge of Lawrence Academy in
Falmouth, Mass., which was then in the lowest ebb of existence. His experience
at Falmouth was very similar to that in Marlow, the academy being brought up to
a high standard of efficiency, the town experiencing a salutary revival of
interest in educational matters. After twelve years of excellent service
Professor Hunt left that school in charge of a former pupil, and for the next
two years he was the principal of McCollom Institute at Mount Vernon, N. H.
Having spent nearly forty years in teaching, he then relinquished his calling in
order to devote himself more extensively to literary pursuits. In 1888 he
settled in Gorham, where he and his estimable wife are happy in the
companionship of their books and their many friends. Mrs. Hunt was formerly
Caroline Higgins. She is a native of Standish, this State but their marriage was
celebrated at their present residence in Gorham on June 22, 1863. Her father,
the late Enoch F. Higgins, was a Colonel in the State militia and a soldier of
the War of 1812.

In 1880 Professor Hunt delivered the centennial address at Northfield, N. H.,
celebrating the incorporation of the town. This address was published in
pamphlet form and in the Granite Monthly of New Hampshire. He has since written
a "History of Northfield, N. H.," of which a Philadelphia firm are the
publishers. Professor Hunt is a Trustee of McCollom Institute and of the New
Hampshire Conference Seminary in Tilton, where at the semi-centennial he was one
of the after-dinner speakers. He also made an interesting address at the
centennial anniversary of the birth of Saul C. Higgins, of Gorham, being
introduced by Governor Robie.

The library of the Professor is one of the most valuable private collections of
books in New England, embracing some three thousand choice volumes by standard
authors, among them being the works of French, German, and other foreign
authors, written in their native language, the complete historical works of
Prescott, Allison, Grote, Bancroft, Gibbon, and Macaulay; Rawlinson's "
Herodotus; Thucydides; Parton's "Life of Andrew Jackson "; Emerson's works;
Plutarch's "Lives"; Boswell's "Life of Johnson"; Irving's works; Correspondence
of Daniel Webster, and of Carlyle and Emerson; Macaulay's "Life and Letters";
the novels of Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer, Scott, George Eliot, C. Bronte; a fine
edition of Shakspere; Homer's Iliad; Goethe's Faust; the works of Chaucer,
Butler, Gray, Dryden, Cowper, Burns, Keats, Beaumont and Fletcher; Ossian; and
nearly a complete set of the Latin classics, Ovid, Cicero, Juvenal, Tacitus; a
"Life of Washington" in Latin; and Schiller in the original.