Lunt, Moses B.

LUNT, BOYNTON, DERBIN, DUSTIN, HICKS, PARLIN, NYE, MEEKER, TINKER, PHELPS, HENRY, CRAVER, RYAN

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 9/19/2009 at 17:16:35

Lunt, Moses B.

Human life is made up of two elements, power and form, and the proportion, must be invariably kept if he would have it sweet and sound. Each of these elements in excess makes a mischief as hurtful as would be its deficiency. Everything turns to excess every good quality is noxious if unmixed, and to carry the danger to the edge of ruin nature causes each man's peculiarity to super abound. One speaking from the standpoint of a farmer would adduce the learned professions as examples of this treachery. They are nature's victims of expression. You study the artist, the orator or the poet and find their lives no more excellent than that of mechanics or farmers. While the farmer stands at the head of art as found in nature, the others get but glimpses of the delights of nature in its various elements and moods. Moses B. Lunt, one of the honored and venerable tillers of the soil in Linn Grove Township, Jasper County, takes delight in existence. It is because he is in touch with the springs of human life because he has been able to see beauty and appreciate it in nature.

Mr. Lunt hailed from New England, his birth having occurred in Orleans County, Vermont, on April 10, 1834, in the town of Derby, the son of Johnson and Sarah (Boynton) Lunt, the father born in Vermont in 1796 and the mother in Canada in 1806. The father was a farmer and owned two farms in Vermont, one of one hundred and twenty acres and one of one hundred and sixty acres. He lived his long life in his native state, dying there in 1891.

Politically, he was first a Whig, later a Republican, and he belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church. His family consisted of the following children: Mrs. Harriet Derbin, Elias, Charles, Mrs. Amanda Dustin; Moses B., of this review; Aaron married Susan Hicks; Henry, Elias C., Gardna, Mrs. Jennie Parlin and Mrs. Emma Nye.

Moses B. Lunt was educated in the public schools of Vermont. After assisting his father with the general work on the farm he worked out some in order to get a start. In 1856 he came to Mason County, Illinois, and worked by the month for some time, later rented land. In 1865 he drove a four-horse team to a wagon from there to Jasper County, Iowa, and bought two hundred and forty acres of land, all virgin prairie. By hard work and excellent management he transformed this into one of the best farms of the Township and was for many years considered one of the leading general farmers and stock raisers, and even now, although he is no longer a young man, he is active and aggressive. For about sixteen years he fed cattle, preparing large numbers for the market; one year he shipped thirteen carloads. He was usually successful. He has now three hundred and twenty acres of valuable land, which is modernly improved and on which he carries on mixed farming. He has a good home and convenient barns and such buildings as are deemed necessary for his purposes.

Mr. Lunt is a Republican and has been school director in his district. Fraternally, he is a member of the Masonic blue lodge. His wife belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Mr. Lunt was married, first, in November 1869, to Hannah Meeker, who was born in Vermont and whose death occurred in February 1871. In October 1873, he was married to Ada Tinker, also a native of Vermont, and the daughter of Nehemiah S. Tinker, a furniture manufacturer of that state, but who came to Kentucky later in life and there died, on April 5, 1890. Following are Mr. Lunt's children: George M., Mrs. Hattie E. Phelps, Mrs. Bertha L. Henry, Mrs. Blanch E. Craver, Mrs. Grace E. Ryan and Charlie C. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 1049