A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS15

 

Benjamin Hobart's  History of the town of Abington, Plymouth County,
Massachusetts, from its first settlement  has become my first place to
look for information about my Abington cousins. On page 369 I found the
following:

IV. Worthy C Dunham, born in Abington June 17, 1815; was married to
Irene Shaw of Weymouth, December 24, 1837. Their children were—

V. Rensellaer, born September 16, 1838; died September 17, 1839.

V. Jotham Ellsworth, born May 3, 1842.

V. Sumner Ellis, born September 3,1847; died September 25, 1848.

V. Irene Shaw, born October 23, 1851.

V. Sarah Williams, born July 22, 1855.

V. Abbie Weston, born August 30, 1858; died August 15, 1859.

Irene Shaw, wife of Worthy C. Dunham, died January 4,

1860, aged 42 years, 11 months, 9 days; he next married Marilla Pratt, 
October 4, 1860.

Now I knew there were more children who were not listed on the monument.
Could they have been buried there and the names not inscribed on the blank
western side of the marker? It was far more likely they had survived to
adulthood and were buried elsewhere. But what about the inscription
for Frank, Grace and  Robert on the south side? Grandchildren perhaps?

First though, I wanted to check on Worthy's parents, I looked on the previous
page, 368:

"III. Mr. Ezra Duuham was born in Plymouth, May 10, 1785; married, first, 

Susanna Ford, of Abington, January 30, 1806. They had one son, Henry,

born October 13, 1806; second, married Polly Cary, daughter of Howard 

Cary, Esq., of North Bridgewater. They had seven sons and three daughters,

viz., Susan, Howard Cary, Worthy Columbus, Charles Atwood, Cornelius 

Thomas, Ezra Rider, Angeline Huldah, Elbridge Cary, Francis William, 

and Lydia Howard." 

So, Worthy's middle name was Columbus and he was the half brother of 

General Henry Dunham and full brother to Cornelius T, Dunham, both of

whose graves I had previously discovered in Mt. Vernon Cemetery.

Now what else could I find out about him and his family?

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS12

 ((First posted on West in New England in January 2011))

 

The grave site of Henry Dunham and his family sits at the base of a hill
that overlooks a small pond within Mt.Vernon Cemetery. On the crest
of another hill on the opposite side of the pond is a gravestone with the
following names:
Susan M Dunham
   1836-1920
Edward E Dunham
   1835-1919
Melissa H Dunham
   1834-1913

It took me awhile to get around to looking up these Dunham family members.
Cornelius and Henry Dunham were descendants of Ezra Dunham. Susan and
Edward Dunham were descended from George Dunham, Ezra's uncle. Their
father was Jesse Dunham. Melissa was Edward's wife but I haven't as yet
found her maiden name.

Another of Jesse Dunham's sons, George Augustus Dunham, was a Chicago
lawyer and Jesse must have gone west to live with his son because that is
where he died and was buried. I'll have to wait for the snow to melt off
before I start hunting for any more of the family at Mt.Vernon Cemetery.

I thought this would be the last post on the subject for a bit but there's
Captain Cornelius Dunham to discuss and perhapos one other post after
that.

And once the Spring comes, there's the rest of the cemetery to explore!

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS11

 Brigadier General Henry Dunham's family seems to have suffered a
reversal of fortune in the latter half of the 19th century. The General had
commanded forty companies and five regiments at the celebrations
marking the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (Dunham
Genealogy p167) and his son Henry had been a successful shoe
manufacturer and inventor. The rest of the General's were not quite so
prominent in Abington society.
 
After the younger Henry's death, his widow Ella became embroiled in
lawsuits against shoe manufacturers who'd copied her husband's inventions.
She and daughter Ida appear on the 1910 Federal Census for Holden
in Worcester County, Massachusetts as renting their home but neither
was employed. Perhaps son Harry B. Dunham paid their rent. According
to the Dunham Genealogy he was a doctor in nearby Rutland, Ma.
Younger son Arthur moved to New York and pursued a career as an
electrical engineer. He married and had two sons.

Brackley Cushing Dunham married  Elizabeth Hunt. There was a Hunt
family that were leading shoe manufacturers in Abington but as of yet I
don't know if she was from that line. I do know that Brackley stayed in
the shoe business but it wasn't in management from what I've been able
to find in the Federal Censuses up to 1910. The couple was childless.
Brackley and Emma are not buried in the Henry Dunham family plot.

Emma Annett Dunham  married Richard L Hunt. I've yet to establish any
ties to either the Hunts of Abington or Brackley's wife Elizabeth Hunt.
Emma and her husband lived in Weymouth, Ma. and they too died
without children.

This brings us to Andrew Jackson Dunham. Andrew followed his father
in serving in the military and the inscription on his gravestone tells us he
served "Civil War Three Years 1st Mass Cav, Also Minute Men T
hree Mos."  In other words, Andrew was in the Massachusetts State
Militia , then enlisted in the regular Union Army. I found his record
over at Ancestry.com in U.S. Civil War Soldiers and Profiles, and
with it, this picture:

Andrew J Dunham enlisted on 15April 1862. He'd been married for
seven years  to Mercie Florence Holcomb and their second daughter
was born the week after he enlisted. Upon his return from the war he
went back to work in the shoe business but then something changed.
Although he was listed as still married on the 1880 Federal Census,
Andrew was living alone except for his housekeeper  Amelia Peterson.
He and his wife may have been in the process of getting a divorce
already because his marital status was given as divorced in the
subsequent Censuses up to 1910. In his final years, Andrew turned to
poultry farming and was an officer in a local association of poultry
farmers.

Andrew's gravestone intrigues me. It gives his year of death as 1917
but The Dunham Genealogy says it was 1910. And although he and
Mercie were divorced they are buried together. Was this the triumph
of a determined woman or the decision of their daughters?

But I found something even more interesting about Andrew Jackson
Dunham and I'll discuss that next!

A FAMILY REUNION OF SORTS10

 I haven't forgotten my new discovered Dunham cousins buried here in
Abington's Mt. Vernon Cemetary. I've been reseaching them on the
internet with success in some cases and not so much in others.

I discovered a few things about General Henry Dunham. Apparently
he was a successful merchant here in Abington and worked his way up
as an officer in the Massachusetts Militia until he achieved the
rank of Brigadier General of the Second Brigade of the First Division of
the Third Regiment of the Light Infantry in the late 1840's. He retired
from that position in 1850.

One interesting note was the discovery of another connection with the
Gurney family. Henry's wife Mary Cushing was the daughter of Sarah
Gurney.

I had more luck researching their son Henry Jr. (He's listed erroneously
as "Hervey Dunham" in The History of the Town of Abington). In a
continuation of the ties between the Dunham family with Charleston,
S.C., he married a girl from there named Ella Bristol and a history of her
ancestry contained the following:

"Ella Bristol, born May 18, 1845. She married,  March 31, 1869, 
Henry Dunham of Abington, Mass., an inventor of leather machinery. 
He died Sept. 22, 1884.


From the Abington Herald:—" In the death of Henry
Dunham, which occurred Monday morning at his home on
Center Avenue, of inflammation of the bowels, the town
of Abington loses one of its most prominent, widely
known, and esteemed citizens. Mr. Dunham was one of
twelve children. His father was Gen. Henry Dunham,
son of Ezra, whose grand-father was Cornelius Dunham,
born in Plymouth in 1724. The name is among the
oldest and most distinguished of the Old Colony names.
The mother of the deceased, still living at the age of eighty-
one, was Mary Cushing, daughter of Col. Brackley Cush-
ing — another old and honored Old Colony family name.
Mr. Dunham began business life as a shoe manufacturer
in the large factory on Lake Street that bears his name.
He retired in 1873, and turned his attention to shoe
machinery, and has given to the world some very important
inventions and improvements in this direction. The
three most important are the Dunham riveting machine,
the toe nail machine, and the Dunham quilting, machine;
a detailed description of all these appeared in the Herald
of Sept. 5. Mr. Dunham made the first quilting nail
ever produced, and is believed to be the originator of
the idea of inserting nails into the sole while off the boot.
The funeral took place at his late residence Thursday
afternoon, Rev. Messrs. Pettee and Warren officiating, with
music by the new church choir. The esteem in which the
deceased was held was attested not only by a profusion
of flowers, but also by the presence of many prominent
citizens of this and other towns. Mr. Dunham leaves a
wife and three children, two boys and a girl."

John E Morris The Bontecou genealogy: A record of the descendants 
of Pierre Bontecou, a Huguenot refugee from France, in the lines 
of his sons (Hartford, Conn. Press of the Case, Lockwood & Brainard
Company, 1885)  pp179-180

After Henry Dunham Jr's death his widow became involved in several
lawsuits involving infringements on his patents by other shoe
manufacturers.

In the Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910, the cause of his death
is listed as peritonitis and his occupation as "Inventor".




To be continued....

MT. ZION CEMETERY, WHITMAN, MA.

I live in Abington, Massachusetts, a small community south of Boston in Plymouth
County. At one time it was much larger than it is now. including areas that broke
off to form the neighboring towns of Rockland and Whitman. The area is often
referred to as the TriTown Area, and Abington as it was before the breakup is
called the "Old Town".

Mt. Zion Cemetery in Whitman is located on Washington St. near Whitman
Center.It's across the street from the boyhood home of Cardinal Spellman of
New York. (It's a funeral home now). The Washington St. entry isn't noticeable
so it's possible to drive past it without realizing it's there at all. The main entrance
is around the corner on Robert Avenue but the older graves are back up by the
Washington St. entrance.

As I said, Whitman was once part of Abington. But it is still a bit ironic that
the "First Male Child"  born in the "Old Town" lies buried in Whitman.