Edwin H. Hunt
Edwin H. Hunt, dealer in automobile accessories at Xenia, was born in that city on November 18, 1886, son and only child of E. C. and Luella (Karch) Hunt, the former of whom died on January 9, 1915, and the latter of whom is still living in Xenia. She also was born in Xenia, daughter of Isaac and Cornelia (Dunham) Karch, the latter of whom was born at Bellbrook, this county. Isaac Karch was but a boy when he came to this county with his parents and he grew up on a farm in Beavercreek township, later becoming employed as a clerk in the Millen store at Xenia. He died at his home in Xenia in 1912, he then being eighty-six years of age. The Hunts were a well-known family in Xenia in their day and are more particularly remembered by reason of the activity in local musical circles of Converse Hunt, uncle of Edwin H. Hunt, who was a singer of more than local note and who for years conducted a "conservatory of music" in Xenia.
When thirteen years of age Edwin Hunt became employed in George Galloway's drug store, where he worked for two years, at the end of which time he became a cutter in the local shoe factory. He then took employment during the summer as a baggageman on a steamer plying the waters of the Great Lakes and for two summers was thus employed. At eighteen years of age he began working in the Vanderpool bicycle establishment at Xenia and at the end of two years of that form of employment found himself possessed of a capital of fifty dollars. With this capital he opened a shop of his own for the repair of bicycles and guns, starting in the Glossinger building, and as the automobile business gradually developed added to his stock a line of accessories. In 1905 Mr. Hunt found it necessary to seek other quarters and he opened his present store at 39 West Main street, where he ever since has been engaged in business. In 1914 Mr. Hunt opened a garage and operated the same under the name of the Xenia Garage Company, but a year later sold that establishment and has since confined himself to his old familiar line. He was the first man in Xenia to do general automobile tire repair work, as well as the first man in that city to do acetyline welding.
In June, 1906, Edwin H. Hunt was united in marriage to Evelyn Ora Ferguson, who also was born in this county, daughter of "Doc" Ferguson and wife, the former of whom, now deceased, was for years an auctioneer in this county and the latter of whom is now living in Dayton, and to this union have been born five children, namely: Louise, born in 1907; Harold, 1909; Evelyn, 1910; Robert, January, 1916, and Annis, January, 1917. Mr. and Mrs. Hunt are members of Trinity Methodist Episcopal church. They own and reside on the old Clevenger place of eighteen acres on the Cincinnati pike just at the edge of town, where Mr. Hunt finds recreation in looking after a truck patch during the summers.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918