[5] At war's end William Hunter relocated to Terre Haute where he married[6] and became a manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages and buggies in partnership with his father-in-law, Andrew B. Fouts.

Robert Hunter's maternal second great-grandfather was Samuel Hawkins, an American Revolutionary War veteran who had served with General George Rogers Clark at the Battle of Vincennes.

[7] During the 1884 presidential race New York Governor Grover Cleveland made a campaign stop at Terre Haute, where William Hunter had been put in charge of the local reception committee.

As a result, his ten-year-old son was given the honor of shaking the candidate's hand after riding a white pony at the head of a parade greeting the Democratic nominee to their city.

[10] Hunter's politics were largely affected by the grinding poverty he witnessed during the deep economic depression that hit America in the mid-1890s, juxtaposed to the wealth and privilege of his own family.

[5] His time in Chicago had brought him in close contact with a number of social reformers such as Jane Addams, Mary McDowell, Ellen Gates Starr, Edith Abbott, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Florence Kelley, Julia Lathrop, Alice Hamilton, Grace Abbott and later in England, Scottish labor leader and socialist Keir Hardie and Russian anarchist Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin.

Hunter proved prophetic when he forecasted the eventual massive increase in golf's popularity, as recreation for all classes and ages of people; this came to fruition in gradual steps following World War II.