[3] After a private education in Martinsburg, Hunter graduated from Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, then read law.
[5] Hunter attended the "Young Men's Convention" in Washington, D.C. in May 1832 and heard leading Whig Henry Clay speak, in including in support of internal improvements such as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which reached Cumberland, Maryland not terribly far from Martinsburg, as well as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which had some difficulty reaching Martinsburg due to the opposition of Virginia politicians who convinced the Virginia General Assembly to authorize only routes south of Kanawha.
Hunter also established and published the Martinsburg Gazette beginning circa 1832,[6] which in addition to advocating for internal improvements, also published essays and sketches by "Porte Crayon", the pen name of the son of Col. Hunter's successor as county clerk, Col. John Strother.
He would subsequently win single terms in 1839 (during which he helped arrange funding in the Virginia legislature for a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad route through Martinsburg, the Maryland legislature offering a premium for a more technically difficult route on the opposite bank of the Potomac River) and 1841, the year the B&O reached Martinsburg after constructing a bridge at Harpers Ferry.
[8][9] Hunter was also a Mason, active in the local Episcopal Church, and received the honorific "Colonel" for leading the 67th regiment of Virginia Militia.