Superintendent of public instruction in Sumner County. Thomas W. Hunter is an educator who upholds the highest standards of efficiency in the school service of the county. To gain his own education he went in debt, and he advanced to a place of influence in relation to the public welfare through his own vigorous efforts. It has been his endeavor in his present work to guide the young people of the county to the channels of state education, the facilities which in his own boyhood, he was so painfully in want of. Mr. Hunter is one of the leading educators of northern Tennessee.
A native of Sumner County, he was born on a farm September 3, 1875, a son of Thomas M. and Ellen (Wallace) Hunter, both of whom were natives of Sumner County, the father born here in 1853 and the mother in 1856. Both families have been long identified with this section of the state. The maternal grandfather, whose name was Duncan Wallace, was born in Sumner County. On the paternal side, the founder of the Hunter family in Tennessee, was the great-grandfather of the present superintendent of public instruction. His name was Lewis Hunter, a native of Virginia, who when a young man came into Tennessee and thus established the family in this locality. His opposition to slavery caused him to leave his slaves behind in Virginia, they being turned over to his brother. A son of Lewis Hunter was also named Thomas M., who was born in Sumner County and spent all his life there on a farm. Two of his sons, named Frank and Lewis, were soldiers in the Civil War, and Frank rose to the rank of brigadier-general. Thomas Miller Hunter, the father, was reared and educated in Sumner County, where he and his wife have spent all their lives, and their home is now on the old farm in the Eleventh District, where his grandfather settled on first coming from Virginia. Farming as a vocation has been reasonably successful to him and along with a fair degree of material prosperity he has also enjoyed the thorough esteem of his fellow citizens. He and his wife were the parents of five children, four of whom are now living, and Thomas W. is the oldest. Both parents are members of the Methodist Church, the father being a Democrat, and they have lived quiet and unassuming lives, taking a considerable interest in church affairs, but otherwise not participating largely in the public affairs of their community.
Thomas W. Hunter was educated in the Tullatuskee College at Beth Page, Tennessee, and he continued his studies at Hartsville, this state. His career as teacher had already begun before he finished college. His first school was at Gumwood, Macon County, where he taught for a time, then he was engaged by the directors in Sumner County, where he taught five months in the year and spent five months in furthering his own education. In 1910 occurred his election to the office of superintendent of public instruction for the county, and during the past two years he has made a notable record of improving methods and securing the systematic cooperation of all parties concerned, which is a factor of the greatest importance in facilitating the perfect service of local schools.
Mr. Hunter has also been known to the citizens of this county as a merchant, having been associated with his brother in 1903-9 in a store, but in the latter year he sold his interest to his brother. Though starting his career in debt for his education he has long since put himself even on that score and has acquired from year to year a gratifying increase in material prosperity.
Mr. Hunter was married December 28, 1897, to Miss Ollie Smithson, a daughter of M. Smithson, a farmer of Sumner County. Mrs. Hunter died in 1906, leaving one son named Dewey, now in school. In 1909 Mr. Hunter was united in marriage with Mary L. Montgomery, a daughter of James Montgomery, a native of Sumner County and in former years a lawyer, and also a soldier during the Civil War. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter are the parents of one child, William Hutchison, now two years of age. Mrs. Hunter is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and he belongs to the Methodist Church. His fraternal affiliations are with the Masonic order, belonging to Beach Camp Lodge No. 240, A. F. & A. M., at Shackle Island, Tennessee. In politics he is a Democrat.
