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Note: tly had four sons (Edward, Ralph, John, Samuel) and a daughter Mary b. on Long Island, identified in his will of Jan 1676/7, administration granted to his son Edward 25 Feb 1676/7. Most of his children and grandchildren were pioneer settlers at Maidenhead (Lawrence) and Hopewell Townships, NJ, in the years around 1700 and from there many descendants became explorers and traders along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, NC,KY, TN, IA, IL,MS OK, and across the plains to Utah, California, Oregon and Washington. There has been nothing to indicate that any of this family ever settled in Vermont or elsewhere in New England, although a few moved up the Delaware River and into Western New York State in the 19th century. However, Ralph Hunt of Long Island (LI) produced a prolific line of Hunts which had many outstanding people of national significance in the development of the U.S. It is well at this point to point out many of the errors which appear in histories and genealogies in respect to Ralph Hunt and his descendants for several generations, errors which have continued to appear in publications up to and through the mid 1900s. Ralph Hunt has variously been reported (erroneously) as a brother or son of the pioneer Thomas Hunt of Westchester, NY; also as the same Ralph Hunt who appears in Virginia in 1635 (also untrue--a 1955 study which claims to have demonstrated that the two were the same produces evidence to the contrary). Various dates are given for his birth (all incorrect) and statements are made purporting to give the name of his wife (it remains unknown). He is assumed to have come from England (probably true) but extensive contemporary research in early New York records and records in England by a group of dedicated descendants in person and through professional genealogists in New York area and England have failed to come up with any clue as to where he came from or who his ancestors were. His grandson John Hunt (with brothers Samuel, Edward, Ralph--the four sons of the pioneer Ralph's son John) were early settlers in Hopewell NJ, where they are mixed in with various uncles and cousins with similar names. A pervasive legend was started in the mid-1800s that the grandson John Hunt (who married Margaret Moore 8 Feb 1714 at the Presbyterian Church of Newtown, LI, and settled in Hopewell NJ) was not a descendant of Ralph Hunt and relative of many other Hunts of Hopewell, but a son of John and Elizabeth (Chudleigh) Hunt of an armorial family of Hunts of Chudleigh, the son presumed to have come briefly to Long Island, and then moved Hopewell, NJ where he was "the start of the New Jersey Line of Hunts." This legend, questionable on its face, has been subject of controversy for over 100 years and appears in numerous histories and genealogical works. It should finally be laid to rest by the direct documentary evidence found through the wills (two of them) of John's brother Samuel Hunt of Hopewell NJ which identify the John Hunt who married Margaret Moor(e) as the son of John Hunt of LI and grandson of the pioneer Ralph Hunt. This is not to say that the various errors discovered on Ralph Hunt will not continue to be perpetuated--they are found in numerous published works through the mid 20th century; some lists of early Hunts who migrated from England to America include John Hunt who m. Margaret Moore in the list; some professional genealogists in England fed back answers to inquiries giving the same information: all springing from the same fabricated legend." "[The late Lewis D. Cook, then of Philadelphia, has made the most thorough examination and documentation yet found on the descendants of Ralph Hunt, work extending through the period 1940-1970 and culminating in an unpublished ms of 216 pages which was left with the Pennsylvania Historical Society Library in Philadelphia. The present writer (Mitchell Hunt) was sufficiently impressed with this document that microfilm copies were made and distributed to other libraries (VT. Historical Society, CT State Library, NEHGS in Boston, NY State Library, and Library of Congress, and a few other places) where it would be available to researchers. The present writer has continued to expand upon the work of COOK and assembled much more data,. especially on the families which were pioneers at Rowan Co., NC, and their wanderings from there. For a brief review of the family of Ralph Hunt in relation to that of his neighbor,Thomas Hunt of Westchester, see Mitchell J. Hunt, 'An Evaluation of the Consuelo Furman Manuscript, Dec. 1985. [copies of which were given the same distribution noted for the Cook manuscript above.] This completes the discourse on Ralph Hunt and family of which Col. Jonathan Hunt was a descendant."
Note: "RALPH HUNT - 1652, pioneer at Long Island, first appears on Long Island across the East River from Manhattan Island in 1652, apparently at that time with a wife and one daughter (Anna). He subsequen
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