Abraham Hun

by


Abraham Hun was born February 1768. He was the son of Thomas J. and Elizabeth Wendell Hun. He grew up in a small family in the landmark homes of a prominent Albany businessman and landholder. His only sibling married Rev. John Bassett.

Abraham Hun graduated from Columbia College in 1786 and received an A.M. in 1789. He was the college chum of De Witt Clinton. Hun became an attorney (admittted 1791) - practicing law in Albany in partnership with Rensselaer Westerlo. The Patroon was among their clients.

In September 1796, Abraham was twenty-eight when he married his younger Market Street neighbor Maria Gansevoort at the Albany Dutch church. The marriage may have produced five children.

These Huns seemed to have lived in his father's large third ward home. By 1810, however, his father was dead and Abraham had become the head of that Market Street household.

In 1792, he was among the petitioners to incorporate the Albany Library. He was for a time an officer in the militia. He was involved in a number of community-based businesses and owned a large farm and summer home on the Normanskill later called "Buena Vista."

By the early 1800s, he had erected a burial vault above the city on Chestnut Street between Hawk and Dove. Family members interred there were removed to the farm and then to Albany Rural Cemetery.

Abraham Hun filed a will in September 1811. It named his wife and two children as his heirs. He died of tuberculosis in January 1812 just shy of his forty-fourth birthday. His widow died from the same disease in October 1813.


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Abraham Hun is CAP biography number 4770. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.





first posted: 9/10/09