Edmund P. Hunter
Edmund Pendleton Hunter was a Virginia lawyer, newspaper editor, soldier, slaveowner and politician who served four terms in the Virginia House of Delegates as a Whig.
Early and family life
Born on March 25, 1809, in the then-small town of Martinsburg to Elizabeth Pendleton and her husband Col. David Hunter, who had emigrated across the Potomac River from York County, Pennsylvania and became the Berkeley County clerk, as well as led its militia. The family included three elder brothers: Philip Pendleton Hunter, Dr. David Hunter, Andrew Hunter and Rev. Moses Hoge Hunter, as well as six sisters.After a private education in Martinsburg, Hunter graduated from Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, then read law.
Edmund P. Hunter married Martha Crawford Abell in Jefferson, Alabama on August 8, 1832. She would bear eight children and survive him. By 1850, he owned five enslaved people,
Career
Admitted to the Berkeley County, Virginia bar in 1831, Hunter became a prominent lawyer in Martinsburg, as well as the county prosecutor after the resignation of Elisha Boyd from that post in 1838. Hunter attended the "Young Men's Convention" in Washington, D.C. in May 1832 and heard leading Whig Henry Clay speak, in including in support of internal improvements such as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which reached Cumberland, Maryland not terribly far from Martinsburg, as well as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which had some difficulty reaching Martinsburg due to the opposition of Virginia politicians who convinced the Virginia General Assembly to authorize only routes south of Kanawha.Hunter also established and published the Martinsburg Gazette beginning circa 1832, which in addition to advocating for internal improvements, also published essays and sketches by "Porte Crayon", the pen name of the son of Col. Hunter's successor as county clerk, Col. John Strother. Porte Crayon lived at Berkeley Springs in Berkeley County during summers and Martinsburg during winters.
Berkeley County's voters elected E.P. Hunter as one of their delegates to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1834, and Hunter won re-election once before losing his second bid for re-election. He would subsequently win single terms in 1839 and 1841, the year the B&O reached Martinsburg after constructing a bridge at Harpers Ferry.
Hunter was also a Mason, active in the local Episcopal Church, and received the honorific "Colonel" for leading the 67th regiment of Virginia Militia.