Milicent (Wright) Hunt (abt. 1738 - abt. 1802)

Born about 1738 in Flushing, Queens, New York Colony [uncertain]

Wife of Thomas Elwood Hunt — married 20 Jan 1758 (to 15 Sep 1802) in New York Colony

Descendants

Died about 15 Sep 1802 at about age 64 in West Farms, Bronx, New York, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Mags Gaulden [send private message]

Disputed Origins

This profile accepts the contention of Douglas Wright Cruger, in his 1987 genealogy of the Wrights (see Sources), that both Hannah (Wright) [Drake] Hunt and her elder sister Milicent (Wright) Hunt were daughters of Jonathan Wright of Flushing, in New York Colony; Cruger lists sources for his work, though some are challenging to locate online. It bears mention that earlier works either expressed a differing opinion, or simply avoided the issue:

• Thomas Bellows and his compiler T.R. Wyman, Jr., publishing in 1863, make note of Thomas's marriages to the two sisters, but are silent on the question of their origins.^[1]

• Henry Griswold Jesup, in his 1887 Jessup family genealogy, stated that the sisters were children of Joseph Wright of Flushing^[2], but he cites no source for that contention.

Biography

Milicent (the spelling shown for her name in the inscription on son Richard's gravestone^[3]; also recorded elsewhere as Melicent and Milseson) Wright is believed to have been born about 1738, based on the assumption that she was the first child born following the October 1737 marriage of Jonathan Wright to Amy/Anne Allsop ^[4]. Milicent was presumably born at Flushing, in New York Colony, her parents' known (later) residence.

On the 15th of September, 1757, Milicent married, as his first wife, Thomas Hunt of West Farms, his residence within Westchester (later, separated from Westchester in 1846); she bore him twelve children between 1757 and 1780. She died in September of 1802 at West Farms. At some point following her death, the widowed Jonathan was remarried to Milicent's younger sister, the widow Hannah (Wright) Drake.^[5].

The absence of a grave for Milicent among those reported to lie in the old Hunt's Point burying ground (now within Joseph Rodman Drake Park, in the Bronx) is puzzling; apart from the erroneous conflation of Hannah with "Millicent" in sister Hannah's memorial's header, no gravestone for Milicent is shown in the Find A Grave listing for the cemetery (see https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1828295/memorial-search?firstName=&lastName=Hunt&includeMaidenName=true), nor is one mentioned in the 1908 report of the Underhill Society of a committee's visit to the place in 1905. The cemetery was described at that time as being "in a very dilapidated condition all over grown with brush", and It is of course possible that the Underhill group simply did not locate the grave -- or that any gravestone for Milicent was damaged beyond recognition^[6].

Research Notes

A large array of children from the original GEDCOM download on which this page was based were attributed to Milicent Wright -- some correctly, but others incorrectly. E.g.:

James Hunt, 1749 in Westchester, New York, United States

Thomas Hunt, 1753 in Westchester, New York, United States

-- Cannot, by these dates, be offspring of Milicent and Thomas Hunt, who were not wed until 1757.

Stephen Hunt, 1750 in Bedford, Bedford, Virginia, United States -- He appears in the information for Dr. Thomas Hunt's release from prison (as a British Loyalist during the Revolution), and he has been added as a child of Dr. Hunt because of this. If this is correct, he would be the oldest of Dr. Thomas Hunt's children.

Cannot be a child of Milicent and Thomas of New York, both per his date of birth and its location; thought to be a son of Dr. Thomas Hunt of Virginia.

Dr. Thomas Hunt of Bedford, Virginia, married his wife Anne [presumed surname: Henson/Hanson] in 1755. He is clearly a different fellow from the Thomas Hunt of New York who married Milicent Wright in 1757. The Original GEDCOM file erroneously had children of both the Virginia and New York Thomas Hunts listed as Milicent's offspring. The Virginia-born "Hunt 14" simply do not belong to her.

A likely list of the children of Thomas & Milicent Hunt, with their approximate years of birth (further research needed):

Joseph Hunt, 1758 in Westchester, New York, United States

Alsop Hunt, 1759 in Westchester, New York, United States

Henry Hunt, 1760

Jonathan Hunt, 1761

Hannah Hunt, 1763 -- m. Isaac Jackson Talman by 1789

James Hunt, say 1765

Joshua Hunt, 1766

Mary Hunt, 1772^[7]

Elizabeth Hunt, 1774

Margaret Hunt, 1776 (or 1770, per Jesup)^[8]

Richard L Hunt, April, 1780 in Westchester, New York, United States^[9]

"A daughter, who was living in 1862"^[10]; this is likely Sarah, born say 1778, who married Peter Talman^[11].

Sources

1. ↑ Genealogy of the Name and Family of Hunt : Early Established in America from Europe : Exhibiting Pedigrees of Ten Thousand Persons : Enlarged by Religious and Historic Readings, section - "New York Line", authorized by Bellows, Thomas, compiled by T. R. Wyman, Jr., orig. pub New York, J, Wilson, 1862; Boston: J. Wilson and Son, 1985, p. 154 & p. 163; p. 154, https://archive.org/details/genealogyofnamef01wyma/page/154/mode/2up; p. 163, https://archive.org/details/genealogyofnamef01wyma/page/162/mode/2up
2. ↑ Edward Jessup of West Farms and His Descendants, 1639-1887, by Jesup, Henry Griswold, Westchester County, New York, 1887, p. 383; https://books.google.com/books?id=m9cxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA383&lpg=PA383&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false)
3. ↑ Annual Report of the Secretary, Underhill Society of America · 1904, Vols. 12-25, Sixteenth Annual Report, 1908, "Burial Place Committee", "Hunt's Burial Ground, Hunt's Point, N.Y.", p. 26; https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Secretary/ye8UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hannah+Hunt+Talman&pg=RA4-PA26&printsec=frontcover
4. ↑ Cruger, Douglas Wright A Genealogical Dictionary of Wright Families (Bowie, Maryland, 1987), p. 79 (Jonathan 5) [accessible online; may be borrowed hourly at Archive.org (free membership)]; https://archive.org/details/genealogicaldict00crug/page/78/mode/2up [Note: Cruger mistakenly states that Amy was the widow of Nathaniel Hazzard; Nathaniel married not Amy, but her sister Deborah.]
5. ↑ A Genealogical Dictionary of Wright Families in the Lower Hudson Valley to 1800, as above, p. 79
6. ↑ Annual Report of the Secretary, Underhill Society of America, as above; https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Secretary/ye8UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hannah+Hunt+Talman&pg=RA4-PA26&printsec=frontcover
7. ↑ [Calc. from] Annual Report of the Secretary, Underhill Society of America, as above; https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Secretary/ye8UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hannah+Hunt+Talman&pg=RA4-PA26&printsec=frontcover
8. ↑ Edward Jessup of West Farms and His Descendants, 1639-1887, by Jesup, Henry Griswold, Westchester County, New York, 1887, pp. 383-84; https://books.google.com/books?id=m9cxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA383&lpg=PA383&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
9. ↑ [Calc. from] Annual Report of the Secretary, Underhill Society of America, as above; https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Secretary/ye8UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hannah+Hunt+Talman&pg=RA4-PA26&printsec=frontcover
10. ↑ Edward Jessup of West Farms and His Descendants, 1639-1887, by Jesup, Henry Griswold, as above; https://books.google.com/books?id=m9cxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA383&lpg=PA383&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false
11. ↑ Annual Report of the Secretary, Underhill Society of America, as above; https://www.google.com/books/edition/Annual_Report_of_the_Secretary/ye8UAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Hannah+Hunt+Talman&pg=RA4-PA26&printsec=frontcover

• A Genealogical Dictionary of Wright Families in the Lower Hudson Valley to 1800, by Douglas Wright Cruger, Bowie, Md. : Heritage Books, 1987 [accessible online; may be borrowed hourly at Archive.org (free membership)]; https://archive.org/details/genealogicaldict00crug/page/n5/mode/2up

See also (note that online family trees are not considered reliable unless primary, or highly reputable secondary, sources are given; information from Find A Grave is also generally considered unreliable in the absence of support from a contemporary gravestone -- a legible image of which must appear on the memorial page -- or from cited primary or highly reliable secondary sources).

• [NOTE: memorial conflates Hannah (Wright) Hunt with sister Mil[l]icent] Birth (calc.), family members, death, and burial (with image of gravestone for Hannah (Wright) Hunt): Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89543306/hannah-hunt : accessed 24 June 2022), memorial page for Hannah "Millicent" Wright Hunt (1740–15 Sep 1812), Find A Grave: Memorial #89543306, citing Joseph Rodman Drake Park, Bronx, Bronx County, New York, USA ; Maintained by Barbara Doxey (contributor 46556096) .

• [Note that this tree, at the time the gedcom was imported, contained serious errors and conflated Hunt families from New York and Virginia.] Foster Family Tree.ged on May 27, 2011 by Ferrell Foster Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members. Note: This information comes from 1 or more individual Ancestry Family Tree files. This source citation points you to a current version of those files. The owners of these tree files may have removed or changed information since this source citation was created. See: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=5513553&pid=581346166 .

Acknowledgments

• WikiTree profile Wright-2517 created through the import of Foster Family Tree.ged on May 27, 2011 by Ferrell Foster. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Ferrell and others.