Representative Narsworthy Hunter - Contact Information

Narsworthy Hunter (c. 1756 – March 11, 1802) was a delegate to the U.S. Congress from the Mississippi Territory and that state’s first representative to Congress.

Hunter was born in Virginia at an unknown birth date, though at the time of his death he was estimated to be about 45 years old. He relocated as a young adult to Mississippi. In 1795, he was granted 1000 acres on Cole’s Creek by the Spanish government in the Natchez District. He became a captain in the local militia, formed in 1793, and presented a petition to Andrew Ellicott from citizens asking the United States to intervene in their interests. Ellicott sent him to Philadelphia to deliver a message to the Secretary of State and Hunter returned with a commission of inspector of military posts east of the Mississippi. In 1798, Governor Sargent promoted Hunter to Major in the militia, and offered him the office of Major of Horse, but due to his opposition of the Governor, Hunter declined. In 1799 he was sent to the Capitol in Philadelphia by a committee, the Committee of 1799, opposed to Governor Sargent and succeeded in getting Congress to allow Mississippi to create a general assembly and an elect a delegate. Once the general assembly was formed in 1801, Hunter was elected by the assembly as the territory’s delegate to the Seventh Congress. According to a thesis on libel law in Mississippi, “Mississippi’s first territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress, Narsworthy Hunter, had been a lobbyist in Washington. His other activities had included secretly presenting Cato West’s first petition to Claiborne in Congress, inflating population figures, and telling other members of Congress that the citizens of the territory could govern themselves.”

He traveled to the new Capitol in Washington, where he served for a little more than three months (December 7, 1801 – March 11, 1802) before dying suddenly. He was the first member of Congress to die in office after the Capitol moved to Washington, D.C.