Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (August 22, 1802 – September 14, 1886) was an American fur trader, insurance underwriter, and land speculator.

[5] When his father, a lawyer, lost his money in 1812 in speculative ventures, his aunt took him in at her house in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he was educated.

[6] The family discovered upon their arrival that Elizur could not practice law as he was an American, but made money by renting a house to lodgers.

Although Hubbard eventually became a major booster of Chicago and one of its leading citizens, he wouldn't make his permanent home in the city until 1834.

Hubbard expressed a desire to be chosen as his successor, but was passed over in favor of Thomas Jefferson Vance Owen of Kaskaskia, Illinois.

[16] After he walked for 75 miles (121 km) in a single night to warn the town of Danville, Illinois, of an impending raid by Indians, he earned the nickname "Pa-pa-ma-ta-be," or "Swift-Walker."

To those who doubted his 75-mile run he mentioned the story of Pierre La Claire, who traveled 90 miles (140 km) from St. Joseph, Michigan, to Chicago to warn his uncle John Kinzie of the impending War of 1812.

Building his fortune in meats and furs allowed Hubbard to enter into the insurance business, and he was the first underwriter in Chicago.

Hubbard was the owner of the Lady Elgin, a steamship which was rammed by a schooner and sank in 1860 off of the coast of present-day Winnetka, Illinois.

[24] In the late 1860s, Hubbard began work on his autobiography and had produced an 800-page manuscript which was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.

[14] Hubbard partly recovered from his financial setbacks following the Great Chicago Fire, but his health began to deteriorate.