Hunt House

The Hunt House is closed to visitors, though the grounds are open during daylight hours.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

401 E Main St, Waterloo, NY 13165

Significance:

Site of the gathering that inspired the first women's rights convention in the United States

Designation:

National Historical Park, National Register of Historic Places, National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom

Amenities

1 listed

Information Kiosk/Bulletin Board

Richard Hunt's Influence

Richard P. Hunt purchased 143 acres of farmland on the eastern edge of Waterloo village in 1828. A year later he built this house. Hunt and his third wife Sarah M'Clintock Hunt had a growing family by the late 1830s, which they accommodated by adding a wing to the home. Richard Hunt was well-connected in the village of Waterloo by virtue of his multiple marriages. His relations created an extended family of Hunts, M'Clintocks, Mounts, Plants, and Pryors, all of them related to him as sisters, nieces, in-laws, or siblings of in-laws. All of these families were of Quaker background. All of them had migrated to Waterloo either from Philadelphia or from eastern New York State.

Enter Jane

In 1844, two years after his wife Sarah's death, Richard Hunt married Jane Clothier Master, his fourth wife.

Jane's marriage to Richard P. Hunt made her the wife of one of the richest men in Seneca County, and their home reflected their prosperity. The house was an eleven-room brick Federal-style mansion with a central hallway, old-fashioned for the 1840s but commodious. They lived in considerable comfort, with carpeted floors, upholstered sofas, rocking chairs in the sitting room and the parlor, astral lamps, window shades (probably painted) in the parlor, curtained windows in the sitting room and bedrooms, and a full complement of dinner ware, silver teaspoons, glasses, and candle sticks. They kept a horse, four carriages, and a sleigh in the barn.

In the census of 1850, the Hunt household, like those of many other signers of the Declaration of Sentiments, included not only Jane and Richard Hunt and their children but also three non-related members. George Hunter was an Irish-born laborer, aged thirty. Ann McClelland, also Irish-born, was twenty-five. Both probably worked in the Hunt household. Elizabeth Kinnard, only thirteen years old, also lived with the Hunts.

The Hunts' Quaker beliefs led them to associate with other progressive Quakers in the Finger Lakes region. As part of this network, they participated in assisting freedom seekers who had fled slavery on the Underground Railroad.

Setting the Stage for Revolution

On July 9, 1848 Jane Hunt, newly postpartum after the birth of her daughter Jenny, hosted a social gathering in Lucretia Mott's honor where those assembled decided to call the first ever women's rights convention in the U.S. At this tea party, Hunt and Mott, along with Mary Ann M'Clintock, Martha C. Wright, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton discussed the difficulty of living as women in 19th-century America. Stanton later wrote of that meeting in the Hunts' parlor:

"I poured out, that day, the torrent of my long-accumulating discontent, with such vehemence and indignation that I stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do and dare anything... we decided, then and there, to call a 'Woman's Rights Convention.'"

After the Hunts

The house was eventually deeded to Jane and Richard Hunt's children Jenny and George, who retained the property until 1919. At this point, the house underwent a series of new owners and significant design changes which greatly altered its facade.The National Park Service acquired the house in 2000, with the assistance of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

While the grounds are open to the public today, the house and outbuildings are not open for visitor access.