Ardrossan & Saltcoats Herald
June 17, 1910
The Hunters of Chapelhill
Miss Jessie Hunter of Chapelhill, Ardrossan who died on Friday last at the age of 64 was the last survivor of the family of the late Robert Hunter of Chapelhill, and a link with the history of Ardrossan is now broken. The family have been associated with the farm of Chapelhill for almost a hundred years.
Deceased grandfather, Mr Wm. Hunter, was the first representative associated with the farm, and was tenant of it for 46 years, having been previously tenant Farmfield, Law Castle, West kilbride - the property of the late Wm. Brown of Parkend. He was in earlier life an importer of corn from Ireland and also dealt largely in seeds. He continued all his life to engage in the latter trade and at his death, which took place on 24 September, 1862 in his 91st year he was the oldest seed merchant in Ayrshire. He was very highly esteemed in the town and district and about eight years before his death he was publicly presented with his portrait, painted by Mr Stevenson, Ardrossan, along with a massive gold watch, and he was also presented some years previously with a massive and valuable snuff box by the then Lord Eglinton.
Through his life he was a consistent dissenter, and a member of the Rev. Mr Giffen's church for more than sixty years. As a member of the church he was most exemplary in attendance. Although resident three miles distant, he always walked to church, and it mattered not what was the state of the weather he was there without greatcoat or umbrella. He was wont to relate it as a remarkable fact that he never got a real "drooking" on any of the occasions when he walked to the House of God. Up to the last the family continued to have connections with this church, which is now known as Trinity U.F. Church, Saltcoats.
Mr Wm. Hunter's son, Mr Robert Hunter, carried on the farm and the seed business until his death in 1872, and he was succeeded by his son, Robert, who died in 1875 at the early age of twenty-four. Since then the farm has been in charge of Mr Thomas Simpson, late of Yonderfield, who married Miss Mary Hunter, sister of Miss Jessie, who died on Friday last.
Miss Hunter had other two brothers besides Robert, namely, the late Mr Wm. Hunter, bank accountant, who died in 1892, and whose family still reside in Saltcoats, and the late Daniel Hunter, who went abroad. She had also three sisters - the late Mrs Simpson, already referred to, the late Mrs Maclean, and the late Mrs Hunter.
