John Hunter, Orphan Train Rider

The pathos of this story is not only in the fact that this man died all alone and friendless, but also in the fact that at the age of 37, he was still carrying around decades-old indenture papers that identified him and his guardian family! If he was bound out for 12 1/2 years in 1862, he would have been approximately eight and a half at the time of his indenture and born in 1854.

Did John intend to end his life via the "Dolly," or was he just hard of hearing?

From the True Republican, Sycamore, IL, March 25, 1891.

In 1870 John Hunter, age 15, born in New York, appeared in the census with the George Glossop family in Shabbona, IL. In 1880 John Hunter, age 30, born in America, parents born in America, was a boarder in the home of Daniel Cook in Sandwich, Illinois. Unless John Hunter married during the black hole of the 1890 census, he never married.