William "Old Billy" Hunt

William Hunt, Jr.

Born: 1 June 1789, Sullivan Co., Tennessee
Died: 15 March 1875, Randolph Co., Indiana

Buried: Huntsville Cemetery, Modoc, Randolph Co., IN

Married: 
1) Matilda Smith, Sept. 3, 1815
2) Mary Reed Smith, Oct. 24, 1818, sister of his first wife 

Occupation: Methodist minister

William Hunt is the subject of an article in the latest issue of Traces magazine of the Indiana Historical Society written by Gregory Hinshaw.  

William was the son of William Basil & Sarah (Denton) Hunt and the grandson of our grandfather John Tipton Hunt, Sr. and his first wife Mary Overall. William Sr. and Sarah were natives of Virginia. 

The Hunts later moved to Fleming County, Kentucky, where they were early
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Several of William's near relatives were Methodist preachers. The first appears to have been William Basil's brother, Lewis, who as 'admitted on trial' as a preacher in 1798 and appointed to the Salt River Circuit in Kentucky, later preaching on the New River Circuit in Virginia, the Miami Circuit in Ohio, and others. He died in 1802 having never been married.

Another of William's uncles, Absalom, [our grandfather] was admitted on trial to the Ohio Conference in 1815 and elected an elder in 1817. Absalom went on to distinguish himself as a notable preacher in Kentucky and served for a time as a presiding elder. He also owned a Kentucky plantation and at least a few slaves.

The third of William Basil's brothers, Reuben, was also a Methodist preacher, having been licensed to perform marriages in Fleming County, Kentucky, in 1805. It also appears that three of William's first cousins, all sons of his uncle John Tipton Hunt, were Methodist preachers of some sort or another. 

1808-1812 - William began service as Methodist minister in Kentucky 

1814 - Sep. - Admitted to the Ohio Conference on trial, assigned to the Whitewater Circuit [included east-central Indiana]

1815 - Sep. 3 - married first wife, Matilda Smith, daughter of George & Sarah Smith of Wayne Co., Indiana.  Quakers from South Carolina, they had joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1802. 

1815 - William paid $70.25 a year in the Ohio Conference; assigned to the Shelby Circuit in the Salt River District in kentucky.

1816 - Admitted to the Ohio Conference and assigned to the Oxford Circuit in Ohio.

1817 - Ordained deacon in the Ohio Conference; wife died in the winter

1818 - Assigned to Greenville circuit which covered parts of Indiana and Ohio.

1818 - Oct. 24 - married his first wife's sister Mary Reed Smith 

. . . creating a firestorm of controversy. Such a thing was rare, and, apparently many thought it to be close to incest. The presiding elder though the action 'unscriptural' and forced Hunt to resign from the circuit in the spring.  The minutes of the Ohio Conference for August 10, 1819 stated, 'A charge was prefered against William Hunt for immoral conduct, he [was] found guilty, and Expelled from the M.E. Church.' 

. . . Hunt's religious activities after settling in Randolph County are less clear. It seems that his expulsion from the conference did not end his affiliation with the church, though he was never preacher of any Methodist Episcopal conference after his expulsion. He was known to have preached in homes almost as soon as he arrived in Randolph County, and the Greenville Circuit, which then covered the county, was known to have included "Hunt's" as a preaching point in 1822. It is likely that the Methodist Episcopal class at Huntsville constructed the first Methodist meeting house in the county sometime before November 1827, when the Randolph County Board of Justices ordered a road to be constructed to run west from the Richmond Road to the Winchester Road near what is now Lynn, ending at 'the Meeting house near William Hunts.' 

1818 - William settled in Randolph County, Indiana, according to his wife Mary's obituary, in the autumn of 1818 William Hunt

. . . located and pitched his tent in the dense forest on Cabin Creek in Randolph co., Ind., with but one neighbor in less distance than four miles . . . Soon after her husband built a log meeting house on his land and had regular preaching established there.

1820 - Appointed an overseer of the poor

1826 - Served as an assessor in West River Township

1827-1831 - Served as justice of the peace in West River Township; and was president of the Randolph County Board of Justices during two different terms. 

1831 - Appointed to a commission to locate the county seat of Grant County by the Indiana General Assembly 

1832 - Post office formerly called Smith's and Vulcan moved to Hunt's Cross Roads and William became postmaster.  He served as such until 1837. 

1834 - March 6 - William and his brother Miles formally platted the town of Huntsville, it consisted of 28 lots 

1839 - charter member of the Randolph County Society for the Promotion of Temperance

1839 - Hunt donated a lot in the new village of Huntsville, just east of the old site for a new church.  

William debated Arnold Buffum, antislavery lecturer at the Dunkirk Friends Meetinghouse, with Hunt taking the anti-abolition stance. 

1840 - Opposed the organization of the Economy, Indiana Anti Slavery Society

1841 - William tried by the presiding elder Rev. Robert Burns in the Winchester Circuit on an unknown charge and was expelled from the Methodist Episcopal Church. The expulsion was overturned by the Indiana Annual Conference. 

1842 - church built on the lot in Huntsville

1843 - Dec. 30 - William led a secession from the M.E. Church in Huntsville

1844 -  March - the group met in Huntsville to form the Republican Methodist Church for which Hunt wrote the "Origin, Constitution, Doctrine & Discipline." 

• local ministers equal to circuit riders and preachers
• each church to be represented by lay delegate at annual conference
• making, vending, purchasing or using spirituous liquors prohibited
• slave trade prohibited
• baptism to be practiced, but not a test of membership

1846 - Hunt's activity describe by Methodist minister Allen Wiley:

Hunt was a young man from Kentucky of respectable family connections. He had just been received on trial, when he was sent to the charge of the White Water circuit.  He was a most grave, devoted young man, whose success in winning souls was more than ordinary. His whole soul was in the work, and he bid fair to be a man of great eminence; and he doubtless would have been a man of much popularity and usefulness, if he had not made some mistakes. The first mistake, and the foundation of all the reset, was his premature marriage, which took place before he had fully established his ministerial character. He married a most excellent woman, who became unhealthy, in consequence of which he could not regularly attend his work, and he became embarrassed in many ways. She died and went to rest, and he married again, and became disconnected from the church; but was subsequently united to it again, and so remained for many years; and was, to some extent, useful; but had many ups and downs in his eventful life. I believe he is now at the head of a small band, in Randolph County, Indiana, who call themselves Republican methodists. I have known him long and well and think, while he is blameworthy, he is also much to be pitied. 

1846 - Wabash Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church - several ministers withdrew over the issue of antislavery. 

They organized themselves into a new Conference fellowship, to which they gave the name, "Republican Methodist Church."

1848 - The Cambridge Reveille published by a Hunt relative ran the following:

Christian Union, General Association of American [sic]; composed of the Republican Methodist Churches - These churches are congregational in polity, with a foreign and home missionary system connected. Any denomination professing to be christian, and opposed to slavery, war and intemperance, may take part with, and be represented in the in the Christian Union, General Association of America. 

ca. 1867 - William appears on undated Huntsville Methodist class list as William Hunt, L.E. - most like meaning "local exhorter."

Rev. John L. Smith of the Winchester Methodist Circuit in 1840 recalled years later:

The Rev. Wm. Hunt was one of the early Methodist preachers of Kentucky, a pioneer in Indiana. He was a man of mark in the days of his strength; he was mighty in the Scriptures, and - woe to the unlucky wight that tempted him into a doctrinal controversy. This venerable servant of God lived to smile upon the fourth generation of his descendants.

Another account of Hunt says:

The Reverend William Hunt was a preacher who possessed much native ability.

With strong convictions and an aptness to teach, he had powers to make him a leader among the people. His career as a minister of the gospel was remarkable. He was one of the first circuit riders who had a work in Indiana Territory, being sent here from Salt Creek Circuit, Kentucky Conference. His work extended from Whitewater, North of Richmond, Indiana to the Ohio River.  

He disagreed with the parent Church concerning slavery and following his convictions, withdrew from that body and struck boldly out on a new line. He organized and became the head of a church denomination called the FREE METHODISTS [sic]. He continued as its head until the result of the Civil War forever settled the vexing slave question. After the close of the war he allowed his church of Free Methodists to drift out of existence and returned to his first love, old time Methodism. 

1875 - new church built in Huntsville and William Hunt dies.

1878 - Huntsville incorporated 

1881 - The Indiana, Bloomington & Western Railroad bypassed Huntsville which made nearby Modoc and Carlos commercial hubs and sent Huntsville into decline

1890 - Incorporation of Huntsville abandoned

1902 - Huntsville post office closed

1906 - Huntsville Methodist Church remodeled

1943 - Huntsville Methodist Church fire, a new Georgian colonial church built on the site

1952 - Huntsville High School closed

1957 - Huntsville Grade School closed

1960 - last store closed

2003 - Huntsville Methodist Church dissolved and members merged with Modoc United Methodist Church

2007 - Huntsville voting precinct became defunct.