My Genealogy Hound

FINDLEY DUNN, boot and shoe merchant of Minden, Kearney county, is a native of Erie county, Pa., and was born September 15, 1841. He is one of a family of thirteen children born to Oliver and Elizabeth (Du Mars) Dunn. He was reared in his native county, attending the district schools during the winter months and working on his father’s farm in summer. On August 11, 1862, he entered the Union army, enlisting in Company B, One Hundred and Forty-fifth Pennsylvania infantry. His regiment enjoys the distinction of having been one of the “three hundred fighting regiments” of the Union army in the late war. It was recruited mainly in Erie county, and left the state September 12, 1862, arriving five days later on the field at Antietam. While at Harper’s Ferry it was assigned to Caldwell’s brigade, Hancock’s division, 2d corps. At Fredericksburgh it took eight companies into action, two companies having been detailed on the skirmish line. The eight companies lost thirty-four killed, one hundred and fifty-two wounded, and forty-three missing, a total of two hundred and twenty-nine, out of five hundred and five in action. The missing ones were wounded or killed. Nine of the officers lost their lives in this bloody assault, and the commander of the regiment, Col. Hiram L. Brown, received a serious wound. The regiment fought at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, taking part in the latter engagement in the famous contest in the wheat field, where, with about two hundred men in line, its casualties amounted to ten killed, sixty-six wounded, and eight missing. During the winter of 1863-4 the One Hundred and Forty-fifth occupied a well-built camp, which combined a neat, tasteful appearance, with substantial warmth and comfort, and took the field in May, 1864, in efficient condition. A large number of the men were captured at Petersburg in June, 1864, which, with previous losses, left but few in line at the subsequent actions in which the division was engaged. The regiment took into the service one thousand four hundred and fifty-six men. It lost in killed and wounded six hundred and fifty-one. It was in fourteen of the principal battles fought in Virginia and Pennsylvania and was present also at eleven others. In the engagement at Fredericksburgh Mr. Dunn was wounded, December 13th, by a gun-shot in the left knee. He lay on the battle-field after he was shot until he contracted a cold, which brought on congestion of the lungs. Retiring from the service on account of his wounds and the diseased condition of his lungs, he returned home, where he went on crutches for more than a year. As soon as he recovered sufficiently he began teaching school; then kept books for different firms in Erie City, and then, on the bursting out of the oil fever in western Pennsylvania, he went into the oil regions, where he began operations, and there continued during the “flush times” of that famous period. He made money, but like hundreds of others he was caught in the panic of 1873-4, and lost all he had made. He then went to Wayne, Erie county, Pa., where he engaged in mercantile business and remained there for a period of seven years, making some money during that time. In 1881, he came to Nebraska and settled in Thayer county, where he began farming and stock-raising. In 1883, he moved to Minden, Kearney county, where, after a year, during which time he was engaged in clerking and book-keeping, he in partnership with W. E. Nichol, opened a store and embarked in general mercantile business. Selling out his interest after the expiration of a year, he began handling real estate, in which he was engaged up to March, 1888. He then bought of Meek Brothers the boot and shoe business, in which he in now engaged.

Mr. Dunn is strictly a man of business, and has never aspired to any public position. Of quiet tastes and studious habits, he finds more pleasure in the peaceful pursuit of his own affairs than in chasing the phantom of public office.

January 6, 1887, he married Miss Flora Ribble, of Page county, Iowa, a lady eminently fitted to bear him companionship throughout life.

Mr. Dunn is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, a stanch adherent of the republican party, and is now and has been for years a zealous member of the United Presbyterian church.

Mrs. Dunn was born January 14, 1856, is a native of Page county, Iowa, and is the eldest of a family of ten children born to D. C. and N. J. (Martin) Ribble, was educated in the high school of Clarinda, began teaching in the fall of 1872, and followed that profession successfully for eight years in Page county, and was principal of the graded schools at Burlington Junction, Mo., two years. She came to Nebraska in 1881, and taught steadily in the common schools of the state for seven years — three years in Pawnee county and four years in Adams and Kearney counties, and settled in Minden in 1886, and was married to Findley Dunn, January 6, 1887.