Augusta Louise Dunham, b. Feb. 7, 1854, Palmyra, NY, d. Aug. 7, 1854, Palmyra, NY Harris Winne Dunham, b. July 28, 1855, Palmyra, NY, d. Mar. 12, 1856, Palmyra, NY Adelaide Jessie Dunham, b. June 11, 1858, Ionia, MI, d. Nov. 9, 1896, Ozark, MO Vernon Leroy Dunham, b. May 14, 1863, Ionia, MI, d. June 11, 1935, Ozark, MO Minard Stevens Dunham, b. Dec. 12, 1864, Ionia, MI, d. Dec. 19, 1945, Oklahoma City, OK Nellie Grace Dunham, b. Nov. 20, 1870, Ozark, MO, d. Mar. 31, 1931, Maguire, OK |
Thomas W. Dunham, b. Sept. 26, 1829 in Palmyra, NY, d. April 2, 1890 in Ozark, MO m. May 2, 1853 in Palmyra, NY Maria Louisa Stevens, b. Jan. 4, 1830 in Palmyra, NY, d. April 30, 1910 in Ozark, MO |
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Augusta Louise Dunham, b. Feb. 7, 1854, Palmyra, NY, d. Aug. 7, 1854, Palmyra, NY Harris Winne Dunham, b. July 28, 1855, Palmyra, NY, d. Mar. 12, 1856, Palmyra, NY Adelaide Jessie Dunham, b. June 11, 1858, Ionia, MI, d. Nov. 9, 1896, Ozark, MO Vernon Leroy Dunham, b. May 14, 1863, Ionia, MI, d. June 11, 1935, Ozark, MO Minard Stevens Dunham, b. Dec. 12, 1864, Ionia, MI, d. Dec. 19, 1945, Oklahoma City, OK Nellie Grace Dunham, b. Nov. 20, 1870, Ozark, MO, d. Mar. 31, 1931, Maguire, OK |
A letter Robert Dunham wrote to a Gerald Lawson about the Dunhams: This is in response to your Internet quest for information concerning our common ancestor, Thomas W. Dunham My name is Robert M. Dunham, son of Leslie W. Dunham, grandson of Vernon Leroy Dunham and great grandson of Thomas W. Dunham. Thomas was the son of Cornelius and Barbary Dunham and was born in Lyons Township, Wayne County New York. Cornelius and Barbary were both born in New York State; Cornelius was born in 1799 or 1800; Barbary about 1807. We have never been able to learn Cornelius'; parents' names nor the maiden name of Barbary. Cornelius, a farmer, and Barbary had four children: the eldest was Mary Elizabeth, born ca. 1826, followed by Thomas in 1829, Judith Ann in 1832 and Salem in 1841. All the children were born in New York State, and we believe, in Wayne County. While still living in New York, Thomas married Maria Louisa Stevens, Mary married Ira Hooker, a lawyer, and Judith Ann married Charles Hudson, a farmer. About 1855, Cornelius and Barbary, with their son, Salem, a teenager still living at home, moved to Ionia County, Michigan and bought a farm in Orleans Township. During the same decade, Mary, Thomas, and Judith Ann, with their families all moved to Michigan as well, and bought farms in the vicinity of Ionia. Cornelius died May 27, 1863. Salem took over operation of the family farm, and Barbara, as she later was known, remarried. In 1867, Thomas moved his family, including my grandfather, to Ozark, Christian County, Missouri. Salem married Alice Wilcox and they remained in Michigan on the farm. Ira Hooker, Mary’s husband, became a farmer in Michigan and later moved his family to Clinton County, and was listed as a carpenter. Judith and Charles Hudson were still on a farm in Ionia County in 1879. Barbara died in 1881 and was buried next to Cornelius in Wheeler Cemetery, Ionia County. The above information is mainly from public records, primarily census data, reinforced with probate records, land conveyances and cemetery records. When I first began looking for Dunham ancestors, we lived in the Chicago area and had access to census records at the National Archives branch in the area. We found Thomas W. Dunham living in a house in Palmyra, NY with other apprentice blacksmiths in the 1850 census, which was, of course, the first U.S. Census to list names of enumerated persons other then heads of households. We spent a lot of hours searching earlier census data, the Mormon's files and the Newberry Library, but had no luck in finding any connection. We were pretty frustrated. My Dad, who was then in his eighties, was not surprised because he and his eight siblings all had believed that their Grandfather Dunham was an orphan. Dad told the story about their grandfather as a young man standing alongside the Erie Canal in Palmyra. A stylishly dressed young woman approached him and asked, "Is your name Dunham?" When Thomas replied in the affirmative, she said, "I believe I'm your sister." My late Aunts Annie and Jane told the same story with slight variations. Some years later while preparing to move Dad to a nursing home, we were cleaning out drawers and ran across a packet of very old letters. Dad said he had rescued the letters from being discarded at the cleanup of his Dad's house. He thought the handwriting was handsome and the stamps were interesting, but didn't identify any of the names of the senders and people mentioned nor did any of his brothers or sisters. With a few fresh clues, my wife and I decided to take a drive to Ionia, Michigan and spend some time looking at records at the county courthouse. Voila! We hit pay dirt. Thomas was not an orphan until 1881, nine years before his own death. How the story started, I guess I'l never know. I'm still frustrated because we don't seem to be able get back to the next earlier generation. We discuss making a pilgrimage sometime to Western New York to see what else we might be able to unearth (figuratively, of course). |
