Elizabeth Hunt Acklen

Artist: Attributed to William Fry, 1822-1872 (Huntsville, Alabama)
Medium: Oil on Canvas with original frame
Year: 1851
Size: Height - 42”, Width - 37 ½”
2025.10.01.a-b

Elizabeth was the mother of Joseph A. S. Acklen and the daughter of John Hunt, founder of Huntsville, Alabama. Both the Acklens and the Hunts came from Virginia by way of North Carolina and Tazewell, Tennessee. Elizabeth was born around 1774, probably in Virginia, to John Hunt and Joanna Holbrook Hunt. Her father fought in the American Revolution from North Carolina and served as a delegate to the North Carolina ratification convention for the U.S. Constitution. Her family, along with the Acklen family, moved into East Tennessee by 1786. By 1799, she married Samuel Black Acklen, who was also from Virginia.

John and Joanna Hunt moved to the Big Springs in what would become Huntsville, Alabama, in 1805. However Elizabeth, her husband, and their three children remained in Tazewell, Tennessee until 1808, when they sold their stagecoach inn and joined her family in Huntsville. Elizabeth had six more children there, including Joseph Acklen. Her husband, Samuel died in 1826. She died in Madison, a community close to Huntsville on January 27, 1859. The location of their graves is unknown.