Biography from History of Clay Co., Indiana, Vol. II,
au: William Travis,
publ. 1909
Oscar T. DUNAGAN who is a teacher and practicing attorney of
Sugar Ridge township, Clay county, Indiana, residing at Center Point,
was born in Parke county, Indiana, October 6, 1832, and was educated
in the public schools of Clay county, in Ladoga Seminary, Indiana, in the
Terre Haute Commercial College, the Michigan University and the
Indiana State Normal School. He is a son of Solomon and Eliza (Seybold)
Dunagan. The father was a native of Morgan county and the
mother of Parke county, Indiana. The father died in 1854 in Parke
county, and in 1857 Mrs. Dunagan married Charles W. Moss and they
moved to Sugar Ridge township. Clay county, where they owned a farm
containing about two thousand acres, divided between timber and farm
lands. Mrs. Moss died in 1904, aged seventy-one years, leaving one
daughter. Mrs. Alattie Webster, of Terre Haute, a sister of the subject;
also a half brother and five half sisters.
Mr. Dunagan remained at home with his parents until his marriage
in 1878, when he was united to Susan Ambrose, of Center Point, a
daughter of Lewis F. and Elizabeth (Phillip) Ambrose, natives of West-
moreland county, Pennsylvania, where she was born. He began teaching
school in 1868, when sixteen years of age, and still follows this profession
a part of his time. He has taught in the Center Point schools, in town-
ship schools, and was superintendent of schools in Martin county, Indiana
He has also taught in Warrior, Alabama, Mt. Lebanon University,
Louisiana; has been superintendent of the Pima Indian Boarding School
in Arizona, and was principal of the Aurora, Illinois, Normal School.
During the past five years he has held the position of principal of the
Perry- township and Sugar Ridge township high schools. In 1874-75 he
took a course in law at the Michigan University, and was admitted to the
bar in Indiana in 1875. During his vacations from school he has prac-
ticed law, but has made teaching his specialty. He has performed con-
siderable special work in township and county institutes in Indiana, and
has also worked with county superintendents and teachers in county
normals for five sessions. A judge of the circuit court, a number of the
members of the bar and a large number of teachers in Clay county are
numbered among the pupils of Mr. Dunagan, aside from many good
business men of the county. Politically he is an ardent supporter of the
Republican party.
Mr. and Mrs. Dunagan are the parents of the following children
Lois L., now a milliner; Verna L., a music teacher ; and Carlos, a student
in the high school of Brazil.