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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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History of Wake County, North Carolina
by Hope Summerell Chamberlain
Pub. Edwards & Broughton Printing Co.
     Raleigh, N.C., 1922

         [75 - 78]

                            THEOPHILUS HUNTER

           THEOPHILUS HUNTER of HUNTER'S Lodge appears first as the host of
        GOVERNOR TRYON, and his plantation was the headquarters of the ex-
        pedition of 1771 during its halt of several days in Wake County.
        It was at his plantation that the recruiting was done for TRYON'S
        Army, which is recorded as having been so slow and so unsatisfac-
        tory, the smaller farmers holding sympathy with the Regulators.
           THEOPHILUS HUNTER the elder was the presiding justice of the
        first county court ever held in Wake County, and when the first
        court house was moved from JOEL LANE'S tavern, Wake Cross Roads, or
        Bloomsbury, by whichever name one chooses to call the place, to its
        present site on Fayetteville street, THEOPHILUS HUNTER and JAMES
        BLOODWORTH each conveyed half an acre adjoining to the then jus-
        tices of Wake County and their successors in office forever, for
        the nominal sum of five shillings; and upon this piece of ground
        the new court house was then built, and successive buildings have
        occupied the same lot.
           This property has become so extremely valuable, that some time
        since there was an idea of its being sold, and some land purchased
        which might not be quite so valuable, although quite as convenient
        for the purpose.  Upon looking into the old deeds it was found that
        to use this ground for any other purpose beside the designated one
        of locating a court house upon it, would forfeit it to the heirs of
        the givers.
           Besides giving a lot for the court house, THEOPHILUS HUNTER also
        gave a lot for a masonic lodge.  This lies on Morgan and Dawson
        streets, Raleigh.
           THEOPHILUS HUNTER, besides being a justice and a Mason, was a
        Major in COLONEL JOHN HINTON'S Wake County Regiment during the Rev-
        olution, afterwards Lieutenant Colonel, County Surveyor, and a mem-
        ber of Assembly several times.  He left a family of sons and daugh-
        ters who married into the HINTON and the LANE families and thus
        drew closer the family kinship and solidarity of the first families
        of Wake County.  He lived at Spring Hill, south-west of where the
        State Hospital for the insane now is.  The old mansion still re-
        mains on the eminence near this old site, rebuilt into part of the
        State Hospital, the outdoor colonies for epileptics being located
        near the spot.  His son, THEOPHILUS, JR., inherited Spring Hill and
        rebuilt it.  The landed possessions of these men were extensive,
        their land reaching almost to Cary in a southwesterly direction.
        ISAAC HUNTER, brother of THEOPHILUS, SR., owned that plantation
        within ten miles of which Raleigh should be located, and his place
        was to the north of the city.  Descendants of both these men are
        among our citizens today, notably the brother last mentioned has
        many although none of his own name, the inheritance of blood having
        gone through the female lines.
           THEOPHILUS HUNTER HILL, a poet, and one of our few singers, was
        a grandson of the HUNTER'S of Spring Hill.  At the very beginning
        of the war of 1861, he published a slender volume of lyrics and
        sonnets, and after the war another volume.
           He had genuine feeling and power of expressing it, and several
        sonnets of his are exquisite, but for the most part his poetry
        seems an echo of what had pleased him in his wide reading of other
        men's writings.  It is not racy of the soil, and his images are
        academic, but he shows nevertheless a vein of real poetic inspira-
        tion which time and the times did not develop in the least, the
        stress and strain of the war extinguishing poetic fancy, and
        leisure and stimulation both being lacking to the perfecting of his
        gift.


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