William J. Hunter is my 2nd great grandfather. He was born in 1838 in Mississippi. The first record on him is that I can find is 1850 census showing him at age 11 living in Des Moines, IA with a merchant named John G. Foote, and his wife and 2 year old daughter. Also living there were 3 other people in their 20s, one listed as “gardner”. If you google “John G. Foote” you will find that he was a prominent business man. But I can’t find any record on how 11 year old William Hunter from Mississippi ended up living with him.
The next census, 1860, shows 21 year old William Hunter married to Mary C. Wells in Des Moines, where they are living with her parents and siblings. The 1870 and 1880 census shows lots of kids, including my great grandfather Edmund. On the 1880 census, he lists the country of the birth of his parents as “unknown”. But on the 1900 it shows “Ireland”.
So my questions are: Who are his parents, and why did he leave Mississippi without them? Why was he living in a merchants house in Iowa when he was 11? What happened to his parents?
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