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D.C. Hunt & Cora Pulver
D.C. Born 1841 Died 1881; Cora Born 1852 Died 1924
Red Hook Methodist Cemetery. A granite tablet in the Pulver plot, in the northeast corner, close to the front gate. His name is on the front, she is on the back.
Daniel Clifford Hunt was the son of Daniel Hunt and Mary Rowley of Greene Co., NY. He was presumably raised by his significantly older brother Hiland Hill Hunt (born 1818) after the death of his parents. Hiland took in his younger brother as well as three other younger family members in need of a home as he and his wife Mary Blanchard did not have children of their own. Daniel married Cora Emeline Pulver, daughter of Cornelius Pulver and Catherine Regina Barringer (also buried in this cemetery) on July 7th, 1875 in Manhattan.
In 1870 Cora lived with her parents and brother Griffin Pulver in New York City. In 1900 she and Daniel resided with their son Clifford, a 24-year-old single bank clerk, and Cora’s mother Regina C. Pulver, aged 72. At one point, they lived at 201 West 117th Street in Manhattan. Cora retired somewhere between 1895 and 1915 from the New York City school system as a public school teacher. In 1880, Daniel was listed on West 131st Street as a store clerk with his wife keeping house and his son Clifford was four years old. Daniel died August 13th, 1881 and Cora outlived him by over 30 years, passing on January 26th, 1924.
Their only child Clifford P. Hunt made a name for himself as Vice President of the Chemical Bank & Trust Co. In 1934 he had been with the company for 18 years. When he died childless in 1940, he gave over 7 million in today’s dollars to many different organizations and individuals, including $2,000 (adjusted for inflation that’s over $36,000 today) for the upkeep of his parents’ graves in the Red Hook Methodist Cemetery. The money was supposedly set up in a trust fund though whatever became of it is anyone’s guess.
Clifford had directed the funds to be used:
“for the maintenance and care of the Pulver plot in the Methodist Cemetery at Red Hook, Dutchess county, State of New York, in which my mother Cora Pulver Hunt, and my father, Daniel Clifford Hunt, are interred, particularly applying such income to the repair and preservation of any tombs, monuments, stones, fences, railings, or other erections or structures on or around said lot and to the planting and cultivation of trees, shrubs, flowers or plants in and about said lot.”
Fortunately, the tombstones are still standing today.