By Mike Parsons

Eliza Hurt, daughter of James Mann Hurt, Sr. (1797-1873) and Patsy Marshall (1799-1876) was born in Carroll County, Tennessee in 1840. She died in Gibson County (?), Tennessee about 1877 and is buried “near the entry gate to Eldad, Tennessee cemetery”. She married (about 1873) Dr. Robert Hardy Hunt.

Eliza, the eleventh of twelve children, was raised on her father’s farm in Carroll County, Tennessee. On his farm, near McLemoresville, Tennessee, James Mann Hurt Sr. raised tobacco, corn, wheat and hogs. Before the civil war, he owned a number of servants. He ran a tan yard and a shoe shop and built the first ice house in the area. He was a pioneer Baptist preacher at McLemoresville and at Shady Grove in Gibson County, Tennessee. Eliza, therefore, was raised in a religious family that was successful in many endeavors.

She married, probably in 1873, Dr. Robert Hardy Hunt (1845-1936). At age 16 Robert Hunt joined Confederate Brig. General Nathan B. Forrest’s cavalry and was wounded at the battle of Harrisburg. In 1873 he graduated from Nashville University School of Medicine and retired from practice in Gibson County, TN at the age of 80.

In 1873, her father, James Mann Hurt, Sr. died. In his will written in 1870, he states “I give to my beloved wife Martha Hurt . . . all my Books, except my Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; which I give to my Daughter Eliza Hurt.” He stated further that “two tracts of land which are in Carroll County both the homestead and the William Cunningham tract; and apply the proceeds thereof to the support and comfort of my said wife during her lifetime; and for the support of my Daughter Eliza Hurt during the time that she remains single; should she marry, it is my will that my said executor should pay over to her $1000.00 to make her equal to her sisters at their marriage.” And lastly that his daughter Eliza Hurt” should share in the “general distribution of the residue of my estate which shall take place immediately after the death of my said wife: Shall all heir equally: Share for Share”

Issue:

Guy Hunt (b.1874, d. 1933). Became a bookkeeper for the state penitentiary in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Family lore credits him with giving the nickname “Kingfish” to Louisiana gouverner Huey P. Long. Buried in White Rose Cemetery, Gibson, Gibson County, Tennessee. Never married.

Infant Hunt I

Bernice Hunt (b. 1875, d. 1939) Married in 1903 Joseph Edward Morris (1881-1967).Joseph Morris farmed on his father-in-law’s land and also worked a house painter and wall papered. Children: Dr. Robert Hunt Morris, Evelyn Clair Morris, John Edward Morris, Guy Morris.

Infant Hunt II

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