Hunt was originally from Connecticut and educated in New York and Baltimore. A trained science teacher, Hunt would come to base her fight against the use of alcohol on its physical effects on the human body. Her father had been active in the temperance movement, and she followed in his footsteps. Mary married Leander Hunt in 1852, and the couple moved to Hyde Park in 1865. It was there that she began to spread her temperance message in earnest and was successful in petitioning the school board to adopt a curriculum that she developed for use in physiology and hygiene classes. Hunt was invited to speak at the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) convention in 1879, and in 1880 she was named the organization’s national educational chairman. Thereafter, she spent many years traveling throughout the United States, lecturing on temperance, testifying before legislatures, developing programs of instruction in temperance for use in public schools, and writing and editing materials for teachers. By 1890 her influence was so great she was named to a position in the world WCTU similar to the one she held in the United States. Mary moved to Trull Street in Dorchester in 1893 where she died in 1906. Among her many publications are Health for Little Folks, Lessons in Hygiene, and Outlines of Anatomy.
