Biographies
Source:
MAINE, A History
Centennial Edition
Biographical
Published by The American Historical Society
New York,
1919
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GEORGE SMITH HUNT, one of the most
prominent figures in the business and financial world of
Portland, Maine, where for many years he was associated with
many of this city's most important interests, and a man
whose public spirit was known and recognized by the entire
community, was a member of an old and distinguished New
England family, which was founded here during the earliest
colonial period. The first ancestor of the name, of
whom we have definite records, was Deacon Jonathan
Hunt, who was born in this country about 1637, and
was a son of one John Hunt, as nearly as we can tell,
who was without doubt the immigrant ancestor. From
that time to the present the Hunts have occupied a
high place in the esteem of the various communities in which
they have made their homes. Mr. Hunt's parents
were Frederick Ellsworth and Eliza Kilburn (Smith) Hunt,
the former a successful merchant of Derry, New Hampshire.
He was himself born at that place, Feb. 8, 1829, and passed
the first ten years of his life there. In 1839,
however, his parents died and the lad went to Portland to
make his home with a relative, William Allen, where
the remainder of his childhood and much of his early youth
were spent. He attended the public schools of Portland
until he had reached the age of eighteen years, when he
abandoned his studies and engaged in business on his own
initiative. For five years he was employed in the
establishment of William Allen, a wholesale
and retail fruit merchant, as a clerk, and in that time
gained a very large grasp of the commercial and business
methods which was to serve him well subsequently. It
was in 1853 that he left his first position and took a
somewhat similar place with P. F. Varnum, a wholesale
and retail flour and grain merchant, with whom he remained
four years. He then, in 1857, went to Cuba, and during
the next two years made several trips to that island and
formed a large acquaintanceship among the merchants and
traders of the cities there. Before leaving he entered
into an arrangement with seven of these gentlemen to handle
their exports to the United States and in return export
American products to Cuba. In Way, 1857, he brought to
the United States a large consignment of cigars, and at once
opened an office on Commercial street and commenced his
foreign trade. He exhibited a remarkable foresight in
all matters of business and even as a young man seemed to
grasp the situation in its entirety and make allowances for
all eventualities. The year 1857 witnessed a very
serious business depression which operated to destroy many
establishments far older and supposedly more substantial
than his, yet his prudence was so great and his judgment so
accurate that he was able to weather the difficulties
without loss, but also without much profit. He made a
second visit to Cuba in 1859, and a third in the following
year, both of which were productive of a large increase of
trade and enabled him to extend his acquaintanceship
greatly. So rapidly did his trade develop that from
the smallest sort of a beginning it grew to be one of the
largest of its kind in the East within the space of a few
years and gave Mr. Hunt a most enviable reputation
for capability and enterprise. At the same time he
turned his attention to the shipping line, and as time went
on purchased interests in many of the vessels plying between
Portland and various other ports. The business
continued to grow, and in 1874 he admitted as partners
Joseph P. Thompson and Frederick E. Allen
formerly his clerks, and the firm became known as George
S. Hunt & Company. In addition to his great
foreign trade Mr. Hunt was interested in many
domestic enterprises, and his advice and counsel were highly
valued by his business associates in every line. He
was particularly closely identified with the sugar interests
and was manager for the Eagle Sugar Refinery from 1871 until
lit ceased to do buisiness business, and
was also one of the organizers and an original stockholder
of the Forest city Sugar Refining Company, and later served
this concern as treasurer and business manager for a period
of twelve years. This concern was so well managed that
when the Sugar Trust was formed this was one of the
Refineries bought by the trust. Mr. Hunt was
one of the pioneers in the development of the great beet
sugar industry, and was president of the company that
conducted the enterprise in this part of the country.
Another important local concern of which Mr. Hunt was
president was the Central Wharf Corporation, and he was a
director of numerous companies, among which should be
mentioned the following: The Portland Trust Company,
and the Merchant's National Bank, of which he was president.
He later became more closely identified with the latter
institution and in 1875 became its vice-president and in
1888 its president, an office that he continued to hold
until the close of his life. It might be said here
that of the first one hundred dollars he earned he put fifty
dollars in this bank and as the years rolled on the youthful
depositor became the a director and then the president.
He was recognized as one of the most sagacious and
far-seeing financiers of the region, and the uniformity with
which the enterprises for whch which he
stood, met with the very highest success and bore eloquent
witness to his mastery.
But Mr. Hunt did not content himself with
attaining a leading position in the business world. He
was possesed possessed of unusually wide
sympathies and a mind that interested itself in every aspect
of life. It was natural therefore, for him to take
part in many departments of the city's affairs and aid with
every means at his disposal the public undertakings of the
community. His death, which occurred Mar. 9, 1896, was
felt as a very real loss by the whole State, where for so
many years his influence had been exerted for the
advancement of every good cause.
George Smith Hunt was united in marriage, Sept.
22, 1863, with Augusta Merrill Barstow, of Portland,
a daughter of George Simonton and Ellen (Merrill) Barstow,
old and highly respected residents of this place.
Mrs. Hunt survives her husband and is a very active
figure in the world of women here. She is particularly
interested in war work, and in the Women's War Council of
the Young Women's Christian Association. Mrs. Hunt
has done splendid service in this capacity. She has
been identified with all the public charities and has been
president of many of them, and has been for over thirty
years as president of The Home of Aged Women. Two
children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hunt as follows:
Arthur Kinsman and Philip Barstow.
In closing we many add that in
the obituary notice of Mr. Hunt's death the press had
this to say: "As long as his name will be remembered
it will be a synonym for a New England conscience and New
England honor.
Source; Maine, A History -
Vol. 4 - Published 1919 - Page 255 |
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RALPH WALDO EMERSON HUNT
- Ralph Waldo Emerson Hunt is a representative of a
family whose members have exhibited a happy combination of
business perspicacity and aesthetic taste. John
Hunt, grandfather of Ralph W. E. Hunt, lived for
a time at Kittery, Maine, but he was the owner of a farm in
New Hampshire, and it was here that Enoch Warren Hunt,
father of Ralph W. E. Hunt, was born. Enoch
Warren Hunt was a native of Guilford, New Hampshire,
born June 13, 1841, but who came to Portland at the time of
reaching his majority, and in that city has followed the
profession of architecture with a high degree of success.
He is still active in his work in spite of his seventy-six
years. He was one of the constructors of the old
Kearsarge of the United States navy, which took part in
the famous battle with the Alabama. He married
Sarah Frances Neal, a native of Portland, June 26,
1867, and they have had six children born to them as
follows: Warren A. T., who makes his home in
Portland, and who is interested in various important
industrial and financial institutions, having been connected
with the Maine Savings Bank for twenty-two years, and now
having the Portland office of the Boston Bond House of
Dennison & Company; Ralph Waldo Emmerson, of whom
further; Lulie, Grace, Rita, and Sallie, all
of whom died in childhood. The father of Mrs. Hunt
was William Neal, a lifelong resident of Portland,
and a member of the old Free Street Baptist Church. A
grandmother of Ralph W. E. Hunt was Sarah Fuller,
who for so many years presided over the Supreme Court of the
United States.
Born Jan. 4, 1884, at Portland, Maine, Ralph Waldo
Emerson Hunt, son of Enoch Warren and Sarah Frances
(Neal) Hunt, has spent most of his life in his native
city. It was there in the local public school that he
received the elementary portion of his education. He
graduated from the Portland High School in 1901, after which
he took two years of study at the Westbrook Seminary, where
he was prepared for college and graduated in 1903. He
then matriculated at Tufts College and was a member of the
class of 1908. After leaving Tufts, Mr. Hunt
traveled extensively in the interests of famous pianos.
He served as State commissioner for the National Association
of Piano Dealers, and his work brought him into close and
continuous contact with many of the great pianists of this
country and abroad. From this line of work he became
connection with the managing of artists upon their concert
tours, and has in this way become acquainted with some of
the greatest virtuosos. It wa he who introduced
Gabrilovitch on his first tour in the United States.
Gabrilovitch married Miss Clemens, the
daughter of this country's greatest humorist, Mark Twain.
In 1912 Mr. William T.
Miller, of the Henry F. Miller & Sons Piano
Company, of Boston, selected Mr. Hunt to establish a
branch house in Portland with Maine as his territory.
In five years' time Mr. Hunt had so successfully
fulfilled his mission that in August, 1917, he was elected
one of the five directors of the whole Henry F. Miller
& Sons Piano Company, of Boston. This renowned
firm has been doing business for over half a century, and
their Henry F. Miller pianos are known as highest
quality pianofortes everywhere. His offices and
salesrooms are situated at No. 25 Forest avenue, Portland.
He has met with a very high degree of success in this
enterprise, but in spite of the fact that it requires a
large portion of his time to manage the business which he
has developed, he has never lost his interest in the line in
which he was so long active and still is actively interested
in, pianists in this country. Mr. Hunt has a
profound love of the sea, and spends upon the water all the
time that he possibly can spare from his work and has taken
many ocean voyages. In his religious belief he is a
Universalist, attends the church of this denomination in
Portland, is active in the interests of this church and at
the present time is serving it in the office of clerk.
In his political faith Mr. Hunt is a Democrat, and
when only twenty-one years of age was the candidate of that
party from war Seven for the City Council. He ran much
ahead of his ticket, but not sufficiently so to overcome the
great normal Republican majority in the city.
Mr. Hunt was united in marriage, Sept. 31, 1907,
at Portland, with Agnes M. Snow a native of Cornish,
Maine, a daughter of Frederick and Patience C. (Pike)
Snow, old and highly honored residents of that
community. Mr. Snow is deceased, but is
survived by his wife who now makes her residence in
Portland. To Mr. and Mrs. Hunt three children
have been born, as follows: Emerson Snow, Apr.
8, 1909; Enoch Warren, Oct. 8, 1912, and William
Alfred, Oct. 23, 1916.
The position in the community held by Mr. Hunt
is a difficult one to convey in terms of his achievements
and still more so by a mere list of the offices held by him
and the concerns with which he is associated. An
eminent devine has somewhere remarked the things that all
men do are greater than that they are, and, although perhaps
we may feel disinclined to apply the proposition quite so
broadly, there can be no doubt that it is eminently true of
some characters. Mr. Hunt stands for something
in the community far more important than any concrete
accomplishment, he stands for probity and integrity in
business relations, for a conscientious fulfillment of the
duties of citizenship, for virtue in the domestic relations
and for the sterling manhood that may well serve as a model
for the youth of his own and other communities. This
is what he stands for, and it is on this abstract ground
that the discriminating will appreciate his service.
Source: Maine, A History -
Vol. 4 - Published 1919 - Page 310 |
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