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         JONATHAN HUNT, one of the pioneers of Louisa County, residing on section 22, Morning Sun Township, was born in Wayne County, Ind., in December, 1822, and is a son of Charles and Hannah (Boone) Hunt. Her father was a native of North Carolina. His mother, who was a cousin of Daniel Boone, the noted explorer, was born in Pennsylvania, but went with her parents to Kentucky in an early day, and there the years of her girlhood were passed. She then moved to Wayne County, Ind., where Mr. Hunt made her acquaintance and their marriage was celebrated. He followed farming and milling in that county, his grandfather having built the first mill there. In those early days when the savage red man was a frequent visitor, Mr. Charles Hunt, the grandfather of our subject, was forced to build a block house for defense. Four children were born to Mr. Hunt (the father of our subject) and his wife in Wayne County, namely: Sophronia, who died at the age of twenty-three years; Mary, who became the wife of Milton Gilmore, now a retired farmer of Morning Sun Township, died in 1863; our subject was the third child; and Stephen G., whose sketch appears on another page of this work.

The family remained in Indiana until the month of September, 1841, when, loading their household effects into one of the old moving wagons, so common in those days, which was drawn by three yoke of oxen, they started for Iowa, and after twenty-one days of travel crossed the river at Burlington. They located in Franklin Township, Des Moines County, where Mr. Hunt bought 120 acres of land, eighty tillable and forty acres of timber land. They resided upon that farm until March, 1844, when Mr. Hunt gave it to his daughter, Mrs. Gilmore, and in that year came to Louisa County. A farm of 300 acres in Morning Sun Township was purchased, but the father being in delicate health, the care of the land devolved upon our subject and his brother Stephen. Hard work immediately began, the brush had to be cleared away and rail fences built. A little cabin built of logs, with a clapboard roof and a puncheon floor, had previously been built, and into this the family moved. Before his death the father was permitted to see the farm highly improved, and the orchard bearing fine fruit. His death occurred in July, 1866. He was always one of the leading men of the township, and politically was a supporter of the Whig party until the organization of the Republican party, after which time he cast his vote with that body. His wife was called to her final rest in May, 1871. In the death of this worthy and respected couple the county lost two of her best citizens and useful members of society.

Jonathan Hunt, the subject of this sketch, was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth Jarvis, a native of Rowan County, N. C., and a daughter of James and Ruth Jarvis, who came to Iowa in 1847.