Hunter, Joseph

HUNTER, MACELHATTON

Posted By: Volunteer Subscribers
Date: 2/18/2003 at 09:36:39

1911 Biographical Index to Wolfe's History of Clinton County Iowa, by P. B. Wolfe.
JOSEPH HUNTER
The changes in the methods of farming in the last fifty years have kept full pace with other progress. Formerly wheat was harvested with a cradle or sickle, and the man who could cut four acres a day was a prince among workers; now the binder will cut and bind twenty with as little difficulty. Then corn was plowed with a single or double shovel plow, making from two furrows to four necessary in cultivating a single row. Now a riding cultivator is used which cultivates one or two rows completely at a time. then almost every variety of farm work was done by hand, now by machinery, and on the largest farms steam and gasoline are called upon to aid in carrying on operations enormous in their extent. Not only have the improvements enabled the farmer to do a great deal more work in the same time, but have also made it possible to do the work better and in a an easier manner.
Joseph Hunter was born in Clinton county, on the farm on which he now resides, October 10, 1882, the son of Isaac and Mary (MacElhatton) Hunter. Isaac Hunter was a native Canadian and came early to Clinton county, Iowa, where he was married, his wife being a native of Ohio. He bought land rather extensively, three hundred and twenty acres in all, and practically ceased to work at the carpenter’s trade, in which he was skilled and which he had practiced in Canada. he put up various improvements on his farm. he was a Catholic in religion, while in politics he allied himself with the Republican party. Throughout life he was a hard working and thrifty man. A citizen of plain and substantial virtues, he won many friends.
Mr. Hunter’s family consisted of five sons and one daughter: John, of Davenport; James, of DeWitt township; Margaret, of Davenport; Charles of DeWitt township; Frank, of Berlin township; and Joseph, of DeWitt Township, whose name heads this sketch.
Joseph Hunter has followed farming and cultivates eighty acres. he is a Republican and a member of the Catholic church, in both respects following the parental example. He is unmarried. Though young, he has attained a good start in life and is the possessor of the qualities which make for success and of those which secure friends for a man.