Hunt, Jane Clothier, 1812-1889

Jane Clothier Hunt (26 June 1812 – 28 November 1889) was an American Quaker who hosted the Seneca Falls meeting of Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Born in Philadelphia in 1812 to William and Mary Master, she moved to Waterloo in New York in 1845 when she married fellow Quaker Richard Pell Hunt, a prominent local businessman and landowner.

As progressive Quakers, Hunt and her husband were believers in social reform and humanitarian causes. They were both active supporters of abolitionism and the women's rights movement. Hunt's home in Waterloo is thought to have functioned as a station of the Underground Railroad, with a carriage house that was converted to a way station for fugitive slaves.

Women's membership and role was an important topic of discussion in Hunt's Quaker community, and she worked actively to improve women's position in the church. In 1848, Jane Hunt was part of a group of women who invited the reformer Lucretia Mott to visit New York, with Hunt offering to host the gathering at her home. Hunt invited a number of Quaker women including Mary Ann M'Clintock as well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was not a Quaker. As a result of the meeting at Hunt's home on July 9, it was agreed to arrange an open meeting at Seneca Falls later in the month. Hunt and the other women present drafted a call for attendees that was published in the Seneca County Courier on July 14.

The assembly that would come to be known as the Seneca Falls Convention is considered to be the first organized meeting about women's rights. Hunt and her husband were both signatories to the Declaration of Sentiments and attended the Convention.

Hunt died in Chicago in 1889; her body was buried in Waterloo beside her husband.