Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Hunter, William H 1854 - 
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Author: Portrait & Biographical Album, 1890

WILLIAM H. HUNTER, coal dealer in Joliet is a native of this city in which he 
was born August 1, 1854. He is a son of Thomas R. and Lucinda (Smith) Hunter, 
the former of whom was born in Sullivan County, N. Y., February 2, 1818, and 
came to Will County, Ill., in 1837. En route to this place he stopped at Grand 
Haven, Mich., for a time, and after arriving in Joliet opened a smithy, he 
being a blacksmith. In 1849 he was attacked by the gold fever, and went to 
California, where he was very successful during the one short year he remained 
there. On his return, in 1850, he built a residence on the corner of Oneida 
and Broadway Streets. In 1854, he began the propagation of fruit, opening a 
nursery in the southwestern part of the city, which he continued until 1882. 
He enjoyed the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens, and was twice 
elected by them to a place in the city council, he died April 22, 1888. His 
wife, the mother of William H., died March 25, 1882. The above-named Thomas R. 
Hunter was married July 23, 1845, to Miss Lucinda, daughter of Barton and 
Fatha Smith, both of whom were early settlers of this county, to which they 
had come from Indiana, in 1835. For many years Mr. Smith was a Justice of the 
Peace. Originally a Tennesseean, in politics he was a pronounced Democrat, and 
during the war, when he believed that slavery was doomed, he said he hoped he 
would not be spared to see the blacks liberated. Although the Emancipation 
Proclamation was issued prior to his death he did not witness much of its 
effect, and may almost be said to have realized his wish as he died September 
22, 1863. The union of Thomas R. Hunter and Lucinda Smith was blessed by the 
birth of two children: Fatha E., wife of J. Q. A. King, of Kansas City, Mo.; 
and William H., of whom we write. The devoted mother preceded husband to her 
long home, dying March 15, 1882. She also was a native of Tennessee. The 
ancestry of the Hunter family is traced back to Scotland on the one hand and 
through the Davenports to Colonists who came to America in the good 
ship "Mayflower." The boyhood of our subject was passed in Joliet in acquiring 
a common-school education, and laying the foundation for the habits which mark 
his life. The coal trade possessed a great attraction for him, and his first 
business venture was to purchase an interest with Ferdinand Munch. A short 
time afterward we find him in partnership with Frey & Hawkins, and after a 
year of this association, he bought out the interest of Mr. Frey, and at the 
end of the second year that of Mr. Hawkins. From a comparatively small 
beginning, he built up the coal trade to large dimemsions and was compelled 
through increase of business to greatly enlarge his facilities for 
handling "black diamonds." From the smallest, the business of Mr. Hunter has 
become the largest in the county. In 1881 he associated Mr. O. W. Curtis with 
himself, but a year ago again assumed entire control of the trade. Step by 
step, through singleness of purpose and the practice of strict integrity, Mr. 
Hunter has climbed, round by round, the ladder of success. He attends strictly 
to business, taking but little part in politics, although an ardent 
Republican. Socially he stands high in popular esteem. He was married, 
November 13, 1878, to Miss Mollie P. Turner, of Lockport, this county. Two 
children have been born to them: Carrie L., August 17, 1879; and Robert 
Samuel, October 17, 1884. S. S. Turner, the father of Mrs. Hunter, was a 
native of Berwick, Pa., whence he came to Illinois, in 1851. He was a moulder 
and pattern maker, but finding little to do in this line, in the comparatively 
new West to which he had come, he employed himself in boat building and 
carpentering. At that time the heavy business done by canal, made boat 
building a most desirable industry. He died May 25, 1882, that being his 
sixtieth birthday. His first wife, the mother of Mrs. Hunter, Mrs. Caroline 
Turner, had breathed her last December 24, 1860. 

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Will County, Illinois, Containing Full Page 
Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens 
of the County; Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890

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