HUNT, Mrs. Augusta Merrill, philanthropist, born in Portland, Me., 6th June, 1842.  She was the youngest daughter of George S. and Ellen Merrill Barston of Portland, Me. In 1863 she became the wife of George S. Hunt, a prominent and successful merchant of Portland. She has been actively identified with many of the prominent charitable organizations of Portland, notably that of the Portland Fraternity, the Associated Charities, a Home for Aged Women, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Woman's Suffrage Association. For seven years she has been the president of the Ladies' History Club, the first literary society organized by the women of Portland, which was originated in 1874. She became, in 1876, the first president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of her home city. Under her direction the coffee-house, diet kitchen and diet mission and the flower mission were successfully organized and carried forward. In 1878 the society became auxiliary to the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She has three times held the position of national superintendent in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the last department being that of higher education. In 1890 she was obliged to resign that position on account of ill health. In 1884 she was appointed by the governor of Maine as a member of the Reform School Committee.
(Source: American Women, by Frances Elizabeth Willard, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore, Vol 1, 1897. Transcribed by Marla Snow)