Rev. John Hunt was born in Northampton, November 20, 1744. He was a
Harvard graduate in the class of 1764, a classmate of Caleb Strong
and John Scollay. He was installed colleague-pastor of the Old South
Church with John Bacon in 1771. He found it a most trying position.
He was of an amiable and gentle disposition, and the poem on "Boston
Ministers" asserted that he "most friends with sisters made."
Another Boston rhymester called him "puny John from Northampton,
a meek-mouth moderate man." When the gates of Boston were closed in
1775, after the battle of Lexington, he returned to Northampton, and
died there of consumption, December 20, 1775. A full account of his
life is given in _Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit_. See also
Note 3.