Abijah Hunt

Abijah Hunt (1762–1811) was an American merchant, planter, slave trader, and banker in the Natchez District.

[1] Abijah moved from New Jersey to Cincinnati, Ohio to work as a merchant supplying the United States Army soldiers stationed at Fort Washington there.

[1][3] Wagoners hauled the goods to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they were loaded onto flatboats and floated down the Ohio River to be sold in Cincinnati.

[4] In 1795 Abijah helped his cousin, John Wesley Hunt, set up a similar merchant business in nearby Lexington, Kentucky.

[1] In 1800 Governor Winthrop Sargent issued a notice to Indian agents in the Chickasaw lands that "specially requested to afford unto the post riders of Mr. Abijah Hunt (who has contracted to carry the mail from Natchez to Knoxville) all the aid and protection in their power consistent with their general duty and instructions…February 28, 1800.

[9] With Elijah Smith, Abijah opened general stores and public cotton gins in the market towns of Natchez, Washington, Greenville, Port Gibson, Big Black, and Bayou Pierre.

In 1807, Winthrop Sargent bought Bellevue Plantation in Adams County from Hunt and renamed it Gloucester.

[10] A Jefferson County local historian lionized him in an article published in the 1880s, writing that Abijah and David Hunt "controlled most of the business of [Old Greenville] and surroundings.

In 1807, while there was an embargo on different articles of prime necessity to our people, particularly cotton cards, Abijah Hunt, with his great foresight, sent to England and had 300 pair shipped to him here.