U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Hunter, Moses T. (1790-1829) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Aler's History of Martinsburg and Berkeley County, West Virginia by F. Vernon Aler, 1888 Printed for the Author by The Mail Publishing Company, Hagerstown, MD. CHAPTER VIII. Historical Pen Sketches of the Early Residents of Berkeley County by the late Hon. Chas. James Faulkner. Pages 158-164, MOSES T. HUNTER Born in 1790, was the son of Moses Hunter, one of the early clerks of Berkeley, County, and one of the Presidential electors who cast the vote of Virginia for George Washington. He was educated at Princeton, New Jersey, and after completing his collegiate course commenced the study of law in Winchester, under Henry St. George Tucker, his brother in law, at that time one of the most eminent and successful practitioners in Virginia. When admitted to the bar he took up his residence for a brief period in Martinsburg, but his tastes at that time being more to literary than to legal pursuits, he removed to his line estate called the "Red House" farm, inherited from his father, about one mile north of the town. The "Red House" was a well-known spot in the annals of Berkeley County. It was, as stated, the property of his father, Moses Hunter, and it was here that the court held its session from May 19, 1772, until by virtue of a writ obtained by Gen. Stephen from the Secretary's office its sessions were removed to Morgan's Spring, near the present site of Martinsburg. The jail, a temporary wooden structure, was located in the public square, where the old market house subsequently stood, near the property of Admiral Boarman. The Clerk's office was at the corner of Queen and John streets. Where the stocks or whipping post and pillory, (an essential inheritance from our English ancestors) were placed, I have no means of ascertaining. I can well remember its dark and menancing outline when I was a boy. It stood directly opposite the Court House door — about thirty feet from the present curbstone, and more than once have I witnessed the writhings and contortions of human flesh, both of whites and blacks, under the lash of the jailor, as I passed to and from old James Anderson's school house. The pillory as a punishment, was established in England as early as the reign of Henry III, and only abolished during the reign of the present Queen, Victoria, in June, 1837, a few years subsequent to its abolition in this State. The residence of Mr. Hunter in the country was in no wise profitable to him. He had no taste for agriculture; he lived extravagantly, spent his money wastefully; and his house and furniture having been consumed by fire, he determined to return to Martinsburg and enter earnestly upon the practice of his profession. His circuit embraced the counties of Berkeley, Jefferson, Morgan and Frederick; especially the District Court of Chancery, held at Winchester, which had jurisdiction over some fifteen or twenty counties. It was in Jefferson that he seemed to make his deepest impression upon the popular mind, and there, that he attained his largest and most lucrative practice. When I first recollect Mr. Hunter, which was in 1825, he was of medium height and strongly tending to corpulency, but for a person of his bulk, active and alert on his feet. His countenance, when in one of his gay and pleasant humors, beamed with a benevolent expression; his eye sparkled with wit and intelligence, and his demeanor was marked by courtesy and affability, but in his crabbed and disagreeable moods — and they were by no means uncommon — his face became as dark as a thunder cloud, his tongue was tipped with venom and sarcasm, and his manners were repellant, morose and offensive. He had some of the finest qualities of an orator — a rich and poetic fancy, a brilliant imagination, wit, humor — a taste enriched by classical reading and high powers of logical analysis. His voice was the most agreeable that I have ever heard at the bar — musical from its lowest to its highest tones — and was admirably adopted to give effect and emphasis to whatever he said, whether in the department of wit, humor, sarcasm, pathos or denunciation. His powers of vocal mimicry were extraordinary, and if there was anything peculiar, quaint or ludicrous in the voice or deportment of the witnesses, he could reproduce them at the bar in a manner to covulse the court room with laughter. He was the only lawyer lever saw who could literally "laugh a case" out of court. His keen sense of the ridiculous *was such that he would seize upon every incident in the progress of a trial that was capable of being perverted into a source of humor and fun, and drive the poor plaintiff or defendant . out of court amidst the laughter of bench, bar, jury and bystanders. His style of writing was rich, classical, perspicuous and condensed, the best specimens of which that I have seen were his 4th of July oration delivered in 1825 and printed in the Martinsburg Gazette of that period, and his Masonic oration, delivered in 1826 in the old Presbyterian church on King street, now a ruin. I heard them both, and was delighted with their delivery, and have often since read them with much pleasure. When a youth, just from college, the writer of this sketch would often saunter to the Court House to hear the able lawyers then practising at this bar. The cases which now dwell most especially in his memory were those of James Parsons vs. James Gibson, and William Vance vs. James Parsons, all leading and influential men. They were both celebrated causes and removed from Hampshire to this county, and both cowhiding assaults and batteries, growing out of the same ugly feud. Among the counsel engaged were Alfred H. Powell, John R. Cooke, Moses Hunter, Wm. Nayler and Elisha Boyd. They gave rise to much eloquent speaking, but were finally compromised to the satisfaction of all parties. The case of Alexander Stephens and Isaac S. Lauck vs. Matthew Ransone, was also among the causes celebres in its day. Both plaintiffs and defendants were owners of large merchant mills near Martinsburg, and all were men of large influence and great wealth. Ransone was charged with deliberately diverting the Tuscarora stream so as to deprive the lower rival mill of its proper supply of water. The case was fought with determined zeal and obstinacy on both sides. Cooke's opening was in his finest style of perspicuous narrative. Powell and Boyd put forth their strongest powers in the defense. Hunter commenced his closing argument with the quotation: "When Greek meets Greek, Then comes the tug of war," alluding to the wealth, energy and influence of the contestants, and followed it with one of the most striking and masterly arguments that I ever heard at our bar. The jury brought in a small verdict for the plaintiffs — but it was accepted without costs — a sort of drawn battle. The first civil case in which I ever appeared at the bar was an action of ejectment, brought by my client, Jonas Hedges, vs. the well known Hunter John Myers, to recover a tract of land on the Meadow Branch, west of the North Mountain. Both had patents for the same land, but Hedges held the elder patent. The case was in the county court. Hunter was my opponent. He vehemently assailed the validity of the Hedges' patent for vagueness in its entry and irregularity in its issue. He dwelt with power and effect upon the ungenerous conduct of Hedges in securing his patent in the manner he did, and upon the noble and primitive virtues of the great Natty Bumppo, of Berkeley. It was in vain that I presented the clear and indisputable law bearing on the subject — he carried court and jury by storm. The law was submerged under the flood of his eloquence. My client was turned out of court. But his triumph was only short lived. I removed the case by writ of supersedeas to the Superior Court, where the ruling of the county court, admitting improper evidence and giving wrong instructions, were reversed, the verdict set aside and the case sent back with such instructions as precluded all further controversy. Hedges recovered his land, with costs in both courts. Some idea may be formed of the high powers of Mr. Hunter, as an advocate and jurist, when we find the following notice of his first effort at the bar, in a written opinion, delivered by Chancellor Carr in the District Court of Chancery, held at Winchester: "These points were maintained with great ability, and I must be permitted to say that I have seldom heard so powerful an argument as that delivered by the opening counsel. It gives me pleasure, in passing, to pay this just tribute to the first essay in our court of a young practitioner." A high compliment to be embraced in a judicial opinion from the pen of Dabney Carr. Mr. Hunter was a Democrat, and as such, had given his ardent support to Mr. Clay in 1824. His speech in support of the Kentucky statesman, in the Berkeley Court House, was much admired at the time, and presented some of the most captivating views of Mr. Clay's noble and lofty character. But he had an unextinguishable hatred to the Adams family, and when Mr. Clay by his vote and influence made John Quincy Adams President in 1825, Mr. Hunter gave him up and joined the cry of that opposition, which in the language of Richard M. Johnson, had combined to crush the administration for the " original sin of its election, even tho' its acts should prove it as pure as the angels of heaven." Although the storm of political excitement was raging wildly in the Spring of 1827, in Tennessee, Kentucky and some of the Northern States, its influence was not felt in the county of Berkeley. We had then no railroads, telegraphs, or telephones — few newspapers were taken beyond the county, and outside intelligence reached us slowly through the weekly or semi-weekly lumbering stage coach. An evidence of the total absence of party feeling is found in the fact that in April, 1827, Edward Colston, Federalist, and a Clay man, and Moses T. Hunter, Democrat, and a Jackson man, were both elected to the House of Delegates without opposition, and with the concurrence of all the voters of the county. Mr. Hunter's career in the Legislature opened brilliantly, but terminated painfully. He made some speeches which gave him high reputation— whilst his attic wit, his captivating conversational powers, his wealth of anecdote and his pungent satire, made him a great favorite in the social circle. But Richmond was not at that time a safe place for one having the tastes and propensities of Mr. Hunter. He relapsed into habits of dissipation, under which his system became disordered, and he was attacked with a serious, and which proved fatal malady. He returned to Martinsburg in bad health and died, after a long and painful illness, on the 4th of June, 1829, at the residence of his brother-in law, Chancellor Tucker, in Winchester, in the 39th year of his age. There are some now living in this county, who can recall with pleasure the many occasions when they have hung with rapture upon the glowing eloquence, powerful argument, brilliant and irresistable flashes of wit and humor that marked his professional efforts. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Berkeley County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/berkeley/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------