Photographic Archives , Ekstrom Library , University of Louisville

By Susie J . Pak

Origins

A Lexington , Kentucky native , Abraham Dagworthy Hunt was educated at Transylvania University and was a lawyer by trade . His father , John Wesley Hunt , was “ a wealthy hemp merchant , banker and real estate owner .” In 1829 , A . D . Hunt moved to Florence , Alabama , where he married and entered the business of manufacturing cotton goods . He then moved to Louisville and became the president of the Lexington and Frankfort Railroad Company . In 1850 , he opened the banking firm of A . D . Hunt & Co . with Alpheus Camillus Badger , a New Hampshire native who had been a clerk in the brokerage firm of F . Massol & Co . In 1857 , when the firm survived a panic , The Courier-Journal reported , “ The house of A . D . Hunt & Co . has stood firm , and now occupies a higher position than ever in the confidence of the public .”

Portrait of Edward H . Hilliard , 1928 .

In 1861 , on the eve of the Civil War , A . D . Hunt closed his firm and went to Europe , while Badger moved to Chicago . The Louisville Daily Courier reported that the Hunt family expected to stay abroad for several years . After the war , Hunt returned and resumed business . The new name of his firm was Hunt & Morton ( for partner Henry Clay Morton ) and later Hunt , Morton & Quigley ( for partner Edward P . Quigley ), although Quigley died unexpectedly that year at the age of 28 . In 1866 , the Hunt & Morton partnership was dissolved , and Hunt retired . H . C . Morton left to form the firm of Morton , Galt & Co .

A . D . Hunt & Co . ( 1872 )

In 1872 , A . D . Hunt re-formed his namesake firm with partners John James Byron ( J . J . B .) Hilliard and George Keats Speed . Born in North Carolina , J . J . B . Hilliard was the son of farmer Isaac Hilliard and his cousin , Lucy Emily Hilliard . He was an 1850 graduate of Columbian College in Washington , DC , and an 1852 graduate of Harvard Law School . During the Civil War , Hilliard served as a major in the Confederacy . After the war , he joined the firm of Brannin , Summers and Company , a New Orleans cotton commission house . In 1869 , he moved from New Orleans to Louisville , Kentucky , where he entered the commodities shipping business . In 1871 , he married the former Maria Louisa Henning Hobbs , a Kentucky native , who was the daughter of James W . Henning . Maria was the widow of Basil Hobbs , a captain in the Union Army .

Hilliard and Hunt ’ s partner , George Keats Speed , came from a prominent Kentucky family . The son of Philip Speed , George K . Speed was a descendant of English immigrants who settled in Virginia in 1665 . His paternal uncle , the Honorable James Speed , was the Attorney General for President Abraham Lincoln . His father

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