Daily AncestorHunter
A hunter killed wild game for meat, hides, furs or sale; as an occupation in old records it marks someone who lived by hunting rather than farming.
People hunted for meat and for useful products such as fur, hide, bone and horn, as well as for sport and to remove predators and pests.
In North America hunting also fed the fur trade: Native men were the main trappers, and from the 1840s Métis buffalo hunters supplied bison robes to the trading posts. Wild animals hunted for sport or food are called game.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1880 census
Jno. Rice, 35, Hunter
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Daily Ancestor. "Hunter." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/hunter. Last checked 2026-10-10.