Martha Jane Hunt (maiden name: Cable) was born around 1835 in New York to Lewis and Phebe Cable. Her father was a farmer who owned $2,000 of real estate and $125 of personal property by 1860. She grew up in North Salem, New York, and she married George V. R. Hunt. The couple apparently had no children. They lived in Ridgebury, Connecticut, and her husband worked as a farmer. By 1870, they owned $5,000 of real estate and $1,150 of personal property. She died in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 27, 1885.

 

As a local writer recorded, she “started to attend service at Trinity Methodist church at New Haven…When Mrs. Hunt reached the vestibule of the church she complained of feeling badly and was taken by the sexton into the open air and given a glass of water. She grew rapidly worse and a messenger was sent for a doctor…Before the doctor could reach the church the unfortunate woman had breathed her last.”

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