SONS OF PIONEER FAMILIES IN CAVE EXPLORATIONS OF GUIDES DUTY ' AT CAVERN

Park City Daily News June 19, 1938. p. 6. ,0.2.

Mammoth Cave , Ky , June 18

Visitors who enter any of the Great caverns here need no reference book in order to get the historical background for their contemporary adventure. Particularly is this true if they are lucky enough to have as their guide one whose an­cestors date back to the earliest trips through Mammoth Cave.

Seven families have sons now on guide duty here who can trace their lineal tree back to forefathers of the third and fourth generations who were Mammoth Cave guides before them. Proud but unembittered rivalry for honors in guide history is shared by three Kentucky families — the Hunts, the Bransfords, and the Wilsons.

Perhaps the most intricate and intimate cave associated through marriage before the middle of the nineteenth century with the families of Archibald and Scott Miller. The miners' connection with cave history goes back to 1812, when Archibald was sent here to exploit the nitrate deposits in the cave for the manu­facture of gun-powder for the war with England.

Today seven members of the Hunt lineage all serve as guides, five of them representing the fourth generation of the fam­ily intimately connected with the park area. Supervisor over young guides is Young Hunt and Roe Estes, and his father Schuyler Hunt, 60. The father has been a regular Mammoth Cave guide since 1910. However, his cave career goes back to 1895 when he first served as guide in the Colossal Caverns and later as trailer-guide in Mammoth Cave from 1905 until he qualified as a regular five years later. Schuyler and his brother, Charles represent the third generation of that family in the cave service. Another brother, Morris, now dead, was never a cave guide, but did trail work in the underground area for a time. His son, Leon, carries on for him.

The second generation of the Cave Hunts, long since dead, was represented by James Marshall "Jim" Hunt and Ishmael Smith "Ish" Hunt. Jim was among the early cave guides his service beginning right after the Civil War and ending between 1830-1835. Ish Hunt, though never a guide worked around the caves for 40 years, later as operator of a general store here. The first of the Hunt family who came to the cave area was Smithie Hunt, who arrived in 1840 from Virginia and settled on farm land less than three miles from the site of the present Mammoth Cave hotel. All of the third and fourth generation of the Hunt clan, now guiding Mammoth Cave visitors trace their lineage directly to Great Grandfather Smithie.