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G.W.,age 23, and brother J.A, age 19, rode horses
from Indiana to Delta, Iowa with money in saddlebags to buy land at Delta. This was about
1851. They bought land for $1.25 per acre. Iowa had just become a State in 1846.
They returned to Indiana and moved to Delta. G.W.'s in-laws, Newkirks, also moved to Delta, and eventually some of their other Dunn's.
In 1875, they began building a railroad in Delta. There was controversy about it, and G.W. gave $100 to have it built on a certain site.
In 1870 census-Keokuk Co. Springfield Twn.--real estate value--$6,000 for G.W. Dunn.
The younger brother J.A. that came with him, has an equally large engraved tombstone at Conner Cemetery. He was born in 1834 and died in 1895.
Their father William never moved to Delta.
William was born in Virginia, married Christine Tressler and then moved to Johnson County Indiana. William was my gggrandfather, my ggrandfather, John Henry (a
brother to G.W. and J.A.)so they were Cora Dunn Fry's(my grandmother) uncles.
The Dunn's were very prominate in Delta for years.
G.W. and J.A. helped with the plans to build the
Delta Christian Church in 1876--charter members and always very active in the church.
Dunns owned hardware stores, harness shops, president of the bank, etc. The stone grocery
store that still exists has the name Dunn engraved
on the side of it.
I am still searching where William's father, Reuben was buried. In 1838, William went to Virginia and brought his parents to Indiana. Reuben is in the 1840 Indiana census but no trace of him after that. His wife Nancy Lane Dunn was buried in Decatur Co, Indiana in 1853. She was living there with a granddaughter. Her stone was found in three pieces but no record of Reuben buried there or in Johnson County.
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