William Asbury Hunt
Des Moines’s 1st Police Chief
63 YOA
Locust between 6th & 7th
Des Moines
Polk County
September 27, 1893
When 63-year-old William Asbury Hunt was found murdered in downtown Des Moines, it marked the end of a rich and interesting life, much of which he lived with only one arm.
On September 27, 1893, he was walking on the south side of Locust Street between 6th and 7th streets when someone forced him into an alley that ran south to Walnut.
William Hunt was accosted in the 600 block of Locust, seen on the right in this photo taken 20 years after the murder.
They shoved him over the railing at the deep end of a concrete stairway leading to the basement of a building, and he fell to his death at the bottom.
Hunt was robbed of the pension money he regularly received for serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.
Although a native of Maryland, William Hunt was living in Des Moines by 1856 and working as a blacksmith.
He enlisted as a Corporal in Company E, Iowa 4th Infantry Regiment of the Union Army on August 8, 1861.
In fighting at Missionary Ridge during the last battle for Chattanooga on November 25, 1863, he was wounded in the right arm. Other soldiers tending him were attacked by Confederate troops and forced to flee.
Hunt was given a bottle of whiskey for his pain and left buried in leaves.
When the Union Army retook the ground within a few days, his comrades removed the leaves, expecting to find his body. Not only was Hunt still alive, he demanded another bottle of whiskey.
His right arm was amputated, and Hunt was discharged from the Army on May 15, 1864.
Hunt returned to Des Moines and, despite his handicap, returned to blacksmithing, living on Vine between 8th and 9th streets.
He became a policeman and by 1869, according to the Iowa Historical Society, Police Chief — the city’s first.
No one was ever brought to justice for the murder of soldier and policeman William Hunt.
William Asbury Hunt was born May 2, 1830 in Calvert, Maryland, to Rebecca Ann Brinkley and William Lacey Hunt. The family was large, with 11 other children — brothers Cornelius, John Thomas, Zachias Wilson, James Dennis, Isaac Calvin, and Aritas Lacy Hunt, as well as sisters Charlotte Ann Hunt Priddy, Mary Jane Hunt Powell, Caroline Elizabeth Hunt Higgins, Anna Eliza Hunt Carrier, and Lintha Hunt.
Courtesy photo Melody KirkOn March 11, 1855 in Des Moines, he married Ohio native Eliza Jane Pursley. They had four sons — Hugh, Franklin William, George, and Albert P. Hunt — as well as three daughters: Emma E. and Nellie Hunt and Martha Hunt Denison.
William Asbury Hunt is buried in Des Moines’s Woodland Cemetery with family members and close to his brother Zachias, who was also a Civil War Veteran.
Questions and comments about the unsolved 1893 murder of William Asbury Hunt should be directed to the Des Moines Police Department at 515-283-4864 or to Iowa Cold Cases through the Contact form.
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