Famous memoirs of father and son Quaker ministers, who travelled and preachers widely across North America and the World on the precepts and tents of the Friends.
Nathan Hunt's family emigrated to what were then the colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania between 1670 and 1719. His father, William Hunt, was born in New Jersey and moved to North Carolina about 1752 and was a charter member of New Garden Monthly Meeting in present-day Greensboro when it was organized in 1754.
"Nathan was born in 1758 at the family farm about two miles from New Garden Friends Meeting, the third child of Sarah Mills and William Hunt. Nathan said that he "never went to school for more than 6 months in his life."
His father died during a missionary trip to England when Nathan was 14, and the family was left almost destitute. Some kindly neighbors arranged for Nathan to apprentice as a blacksmith. Another neighbor, Presbyterian minister Dr. David Caldwell, allowed him to borrow books from his library one at a time, which Nathan read at night after the day's work was done. He had to read by the light of pine knots as candles were scarce and expensive. He later said, "I observed the language of the books and cultivated the habit of using it in my common conversation. The consequence was that I was often taken for a learned man. I spent much of my time in reading the Bible."
The land in the Piedmont was still heavily forested, and every community had to provide all of its own goods and services – making clothes, grinding corn, building houses and furniture. Nathan Hunt grew up in this pioneer atmosphere, where every man could handle an axe, and every woman could make butter. There were very few roads, and mail service hardly existed. Cash was scarce, and most stores accepted home-made goods as barter. Clothes were made of flax and wool, both home-grown."-High Point North Carolina