1890 Buchanan and Delaware Counties History pgs. 684-686

FERDINAND DUNHAM. The name of Ferdinand Dunham belongs in the list of Delaware county's early settlers. Mr. Dunham is a native of Otsego county, N. Y., and was born February 20, 1814.  He is the youngest of a family of eight children born to Abner Dunham and Candace Irons.  His father was a New Englander by birth, being a native of Pownell, Vt.  He was taken to Otsego county, N. Y., by his parents when a lad and there grew up, married, and subsequently lived and died, dying in 1823, at about the age of fifty-one.  He was a farmer, an industrious, thrifty one, and a useful citizen.  He led the plain and unpretentious life common to his calling, and died, leaving a reasonably good estate to his children and the richer heritage of an honorable career.  His wife was born  in Otsego county, N. Y., and was a descendant of one of the early-settled families of that county. Shewas an industrious, frugal, kind-hearted woman, skilled in the economies of the household and greatly devoted to her family. She died in 1814, when the subject of this notice was only nine months old. Of the eight children born to these, four are living and four are dead, the full list being-Lorena, now deceased; Lucy, widow of Abner Thurber, of New York city; Amie, now deceased; Joannah, widow of Anson Mackey, of Otsego county, N. Y.; Horatio, now deceased; Obediah, of Valparaiso, Ind; Harriet, now deceased, and Ferdinand. The father married a second time, taking to wife on October 29, 1815, Miss Gratis Griffin, who bore him one child, Franklin G. After the death of her husband, this lady kept together the household which came into her hands, raising the children to maturity and caring for them as tenderly as if they had been her own.

The subject of this sketch grew up on the farm, and was trained to the habits of industry and usefulness which mark the life of the average farm boy. He had the advantage of an ordinary, common-school education. He followed farming pursuits in his native place until he reached his twenty-fifth year, starting West in 1839 in search of a larger field of activity. He was still single and unencumbered by any alliances that would prevent him from making a free choice of locations. He settled in La Porte county, Ind., this being in 1839, and there resided for sixteen years, engaged in farming. He married in the meantime, and, having got a taste of the West, decided to push on and in the spring of 1855 moved to Iowa and settled in Delaware township, Delaware county. He became a comparatively early settler of the locality where he stopped, and was in a certain sense like all his associates of those years one of the builders of the commonwealth. Mr. Dunham's first move on settling in the county was to purchase land. Land was cheap and he secured a fair share, but unlike many others he did not enter into riotous speculations nor attempt to gobble up more than he could make an intelligent use of. He began farming and improved his place from year to year, adding to the prosperity and growth of his community by the labor of his hands. He resided on his farm till 1870, then sold it and moved to Manchester, where he has since lived.  He subsequently purchased more land which he still owns, and has always had more or less farming interests. While a resident of Delaware township he was for nine years a member of the county board of supervisors and made a diligent officer, serving his township with credit. He has always been identified with the best interests of the farming community and has taken a leading part in all matters relating to that interest. He has been more than a mere tiller of the soil. He has been a reading and thinking man. He is progressive in his views and has at all times given a ready audience to the thoughts of others. Cherishing no ill will towards other callings and believing that the farmer's interest can and should be kept in harmony with the interests of other vocations, he has steadily sought by counsel and personal efforts to harmonize apparent differences of a local nature, and in so doing has dignified his own calling and commended its claims to the thoughtful consideration of others, making for it and himself friends and rendering the problem of agriculturists easier of solution.

Mr. Dunham married, as already noted, while a resident of La Porte county, Ind. The event occurred September 13, 1840. The lady whom he selected as a sharer of his fortunes was Miss Angelina McCollum, then a resident also of La Porte county, but a native of Otsego county, N. Y., having been born near where her husband was and not far from the same date- August 6, 1814. She is a daughter of David and Martha (Thompson) McCollum. Her mother died in York State in 1825, her father afterwards moving to Indiana some time in the "thirties," settling in La Porte county, where he subsequently lived and died. Mr. and Mrs. Dunham have had born to them four children, three of whom reached maturity and are now living, the fourth dying in infancy. Their children are-Abner, now private secretary of Hon. D. B. Henderson, congressman from this district; James A., who resides at Beaver City, Nebr., and Obediah A., a dentist of Manchester.

While Mr. Dunham has never been a public man even in a mild sense of the word, he has nevertheless taken considerable interest in public questions; and having taught school some in his earlier years he acquired a taste for books which prompted him to a course of reading that led to his becoming a well informed man on the history of the country. He has lived through many presidential administrations and has witnessed many political changes. He has profited by his opportunities for observation, being well versed in the history, teachings and traditions of all the great political parties which have had their rise in this country. He affiliates with the republicans and, being a man of temperate habits and serious convictions, gives the weight of his influence to the cause of prohibition, believing that in the virtue of the household and the purity of the family rests the lasting prosperity of the country and the greatest happiness of the people.

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