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
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.
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Millicent Wright was indeed, from the best evidence available, the first wife of Thomas Hunt of Westchester, New York. Acting on that assumption, I've just added two variants of her first name -- Melicent and Milseson (the latter probably a misspelling by a town clerk or census-taker) -- in the "Other Nicknames" field so that anyone searching for her under those names will be led to this page.
Both variants are offered in A genealogical dictionary of Wright families in the lower Hudson Valley to 1800, by Douglas Wright Cruger, 1987 (Bowie, Md. : Heritage Books). To repeat here a comment I've left on Thomas's page, Cruger agrees with Henry Griswold Jesup's Hunt genealogy (see https://books.google.com/books?id=m9cxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA383&lpg=PA383&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false) that Thomas married, first, Millicent Wright, and second, her sister Hannah.
"Hannah 8 [Jonathan 5] m Dut[chess]Co[unty]NY 1) 28 Oct 1765 Moses Drake m. 2) after 1802 Thomas Hunt of Hunt's Point LI, widower of her sis Melicent [qv]. [NY MARR: Andrew Ward and His Descendants by Geo K Warde (1910), 612: WRIGHT MARR, 53]"
As noted on Thomas's page, this seems about as well-stated a case as one is likely to find, and Cruger offers his sources... though finding those sources online may be a challenge. I'll check.
[Edited] Some followup: the Warde book mentions a Thomas Hunt whose daughter Phebe married an Edward Ward of Eastchester, so the geography is more or less reasonable for the Hunt family of Westchester; however, Edward Ward's dates -- 1705-1732 -- mean that this marriage was a generation earlier than the Thomas (b. 1727) who married, first, Millicent, and then sister Hannah, Wright. See https://books.google.com/books?id=ZG9ZAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Thomas+Hunt%22#v=snippet&q=Phebe&f=false .
I.e., Warde's Thomas Hunt, father of Phebe, if in this Hunt line, would need to be the Thomas who was born in Westchester in 1670... and thus Phebe would have to be a sister of the first Thomas Elwood Hunt (senior), father of the Thomas who married the Wright sisters. WikiTree does not currently show the -4825 Thomas with a daughter named Phebe (nor -1078 with a sister by that name).
So it's hard to know just why Cruger cites the Warde book as a source. -- The number he gives, "612", is not a page # (the book goes only to p. 604), nor does it match a relevant individual as a descendant #... making me wonder if there is a supplement, or a second volume -- but I have not located either.
Ann was married to Dr. Thomas of Virginia. He last name is not confirmed but her first name appears in records with Thomas in Virginia. Milicent does not appear in any records for Dr. Thomas of Virginia. I feel strongly that if she is connected it would be through the Westchester Hunts.
Was Anne Henson married to this Thomas Hunt? Most trees on Ancestry.com list her as his wife, I know thats not a good source, Im looking for marriage records.
Both variants are offered in A genealogical dictionary of Wright families in the lower Hudson Valley to 1800, by Douglas Wright Cruger, 1987 (Bowie, Md. : Heritage Books). To repeat here a comment I've left on Thomas's page, Cruger agrees with Henry Griswold Jesup's Hunt genealogy (see https://books.google.com/books?id=m9cxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA383&lpg=PA383&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false) that Thomas married, first, Millicent Wright, and second, her sister Hannah.
Cruger's book is accessible online via Archive.org (free membership); the e-book can be borrowed for one hour at a time. For Melicent/Millicent/Milseson, see Cruger p. 97, "Melicent/Milseson 1", https://archive.org/details/genealogicaldict00crug/page/96/mode/2up:
"MELICENT/MILSESON 1 [Jonathan 5] d 15 Sep 1802 m 20 Jan 1758 Thomas Hunt of Hunt's Point LI. [WRIGHT/FL by Perrine]"
For Hannah, see Cruger p. 52, "Hannah 8": https://archive.org/details/genealogicaldict00crug/page/52/mode/2up.
"Hannah 8 [Jonathan 5] m Dut[chess]Co[unty]NY 1) 28 Oct 1765 Moses Drake m. 2) after 1802 Thomas Hunt of Hunt's Point LI, widower of her sis Melicent [qv]. [NY MARR: Andrew Ward and His Descendants by Geo K Warde (1910), 612: WRIGHT MARR, 53]"
As noted on Thomas's page, this seems about as well-stated a case as one is likely to find, and Cruger offers his sources... though finding those sources online may be a challenge. I'll check.
I.e., Warde's Thomas Hunt, father of Phebe, if in this Hunt line, would need to be the Thomas who was born in Westchester in 1670... and thus Phebe would have to be a sister of the first Thomas Elwood Hunt (senior), father of the Thomas who married the Wright sisters. WikiTree does not currently show the -4825 Thomas with a daughter named Phebe (nor -1078 with a sister by that name).
So it's hard to know just why Cruger cites the Warde book as a source. -- The number he gives, "612", is not a page # (the book goes only to p. 604), nor does it match a relevant individual as a descendant #... making me wonder if there is a supplement, or a second volume -- but I have not located either.
edited by Christopher Childs
Mags