HENRY’S RELATIVES

SUB SPE

MISS ANNA JANE ASA DUNBAR CHARLES DUNBAR COUSIN CHARLES DUNBAR CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU LOUISA DUNBAR MARY JONES DUNBAR ELIJAH DUNBAR

Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandfather Robert Dunbar was born about 1630-1634 presumably in , and shortly after 1650 emigrated to Hingham in the Plymouth Colony where he and Rose Dunbar, Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandmother, raised three daughters and eight sons. Robert died on September 19, 1693 and Rose died in November 1700, there in Hingham.

Another member of the extended clan and thus a relative of Henry David Thoreau, William Dunbar (1460?-1520?), is considered to have been one of the finest poets produced by Scotland. However, closer to Thoreau genealogically was the Reverend Samuel Dunbar (1704- 1783) of Stoughton MA, whose sermons are preserved by the American Antiquarian Society. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

ANNO DOMINI 835

After the Battle of Scone in which Dursken was slain and his Picts dispersed, King Kenneth I of Scotland awarded a Pict wood-and-wattle strongpoint overlooking the River Forth and the south shore of the entrance to the North Sea inlet known as the Firth of Forth that had been seized and burned by Kenneth Macalpin to a Scots captain named Bar.1 This strongpoint would become known in Gaelic as Dun Bar, or “the tower or fortress of Bar on the hill.” The first person to employ Dunbar as a family name was the Gospatric I who would during the 12th Century rebuild this fortification as a stone castle. The following is a photograph of an art object for sale, intended to represent this Castle Dunbar at its most glorious when inhabited by the Cospatrick family which would later change its name to the name of its castle:

The Earls of Dunbar and March would control much of and all the “Borders” (which were Berwick, Peebles, Selkirk and ), and had large holdings in Northumberland and Cumberland. Through marriage to the famous “Black Aggie,” Agnes Randolph, this family would acquire the Earldom of Moray as well, holding Aberdeenshire, Morayshire, Nairn, Buchan, and Inverness. Dunbars would be responsible for the construction of many monasteries, abbeys, and chapels throughout the land. Members would go on the Crusades and the seal of would be on the Arbroath Declaration sent to the Pope.

Eventually, however, the leader of the Dunbars would fall from the favor of the English king, and this is what the pitiful remainder of Castle Dunbar looks like today, on its cliff overlooking the coastal town of Dunbar:

DUNBAR FAMILY

1. Although this site became fortified in 656 CE and 1st appeared in written records as of 680 CE, much earlier human artifacts have of course been dug from the cliff soil. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1072

This is the manner in which the Dunbars of Scotland are descended from a Celt who was hereditary lay abbot of Dunkeld, a personage known as Crinan the Thane, Senechal of the Isles, who was said to be “of the kin of Columba” and probably was a grandson of Duncan, the lay-abbot who had been killed in 965. He had been born in 975 and had married the princess Beatrice, daughter and heiress of King Malcolm II. Duncan, the son of Crinan and Beatrice, would ascend to the throne of Scotland and would then, as per (who got some of the details wrong in his play Macbeth, but never mind), be murdered by Macbeth. In 1057

his son Malcolm Canmore or Malcolm the 3rd would join with his grandfather Crinan the Thane (who at this point had reached age 82) in an attack on the forces of Macbeth in Aberdeenshire, and the result would be the Battle of Lumphannan in which both Macbeth and Crinan fell. In , prior to the arrival of from France, there had been a grandson of Crinan, named Gospatric. This Gospatric was Seneschal of the Isles and nephew to King Duncan I, and after his father’s death had become the Earl of Northumberland. When William the Conqueror (otherwise known as William the Bastard, here pictured on a 20th-Century cigarette card) stripped the title Earl of Northumberland from Earl Gospatric in this year, he fled to Scotland

in return for Malcolm III’s grant to him of the lands and earldom of Dunbar on the southern shoulder of the Firth of Forth where it becomes the North Sea. It was in this manner that he became and the founder of HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Clan Dunbar of Scotland. The Dunbars of Scotland who had existed prior to this point in time don’t count (any more than those Picts who originally in the 9th Century had built that wood-and-wattle fort atop the cliff at Dunbar) — because they had been other Scots people who had lost influence, who were no relation at all to this Earl Gospatric the inheritor, grandson of Crinan, were merely the usurped, had become, so to speak, “history.”

Henry Thoreau, whose mother was a Dunbar, would refer to the William Shakespeare play based in part on this history, Macbeth, in his WALDEN, when he used the descriptor “Wise midnight hags!” in regard to the screech owls in the trees around Walden Pond: DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

WALDEN: Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, PEOPLE OF Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, WALDEN a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph. At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the horizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I would mistake it for the voices of certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, who might be straying over hill and dale; but soon I was not unpleasantly disappointed when it was prolonged into the cheap and natural music of the cow. I do not mean to be satirical, but to express my appreciation of those youths’ singing, when I state that I perceived clearly that it was akin to the music of the cow, and they were at length one articulation of Nature. Regularly at half past seven, in one part of the summer, after the evening train had gone by, the whippoorwills chanted their vespers for half an hour, sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the ridge pole of the house. They would begin to sing almost with as much precision as a clock, within five minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting of the sun, every evening. I had a rare opportunity to become acquainted with their habits. Sometimes I heard four or five at once in different parts of the wood, by accident one a bar behind another, and so near me that I distinguished not only the cluck after each note, but often that singular buzzing sound like a fly in a spider’s web, only proportionally louder. Sometimes one would circle round and round me in the woods a few feet distant as if tethered by a string, when probably it was near its eggs. They sang at intervals throughout the night, and were again as musical as ever just before and about dawn.

BEN JONSON EURIPIDES AEOLIAN HARP WHIPPOORWILL HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

When other birds are still the screech owls take up the strain, PEOPLE OF like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream is WALDEN truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the wood-side, reminding me sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melancholy forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape night- walked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, no expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in their scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense of variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then –that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side with tremulous sincerity, and –bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. I was also serenaded by a hooting owl. Near at hand you could fancy it the most melancholy sound in Nature, as if she meant by this to stereotype and make permanent in her choir the dying moans of a human being, –some poor weak relic of mortality who has left hope behind, and howls like an animal, yet with human sobs, on entering the dark valley, made more awful by a certain gurgling melodiousness,– I find myself beginning with the letters gl and I try to imitate it, –expressive of a mind which has reached the gelatinous mildewy stage in the mortification of all healthy and courageous thought. It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane howlings. But now one answers from far woods in a strain made really melodious by distance, –Hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo; and indeed for the most part it suggested only pleasing associations, whether heard by day or night, summer or winter.

EURIPIDES SHAKESPEARE BEN JONSON COLERIDGE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and PEOPLE OF maniacal hooting for men. It is a sound admirably suited to swamps WALDEN and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have. All day the sun has shone on the surface of some savage swamp, where the double spruce stands hung with usnea lichens, and small hawks circulate above, and the chicadee lisps amid the evergreens, and the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath; but now a more dismal and fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there. Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over bridges,-a sound heard farther than almost any other at night, – the baying of dogs, and sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow in a distant barn-yard. In the mean while all the shore rang with the trump of bullfrogs, the sturdy spirits of ancient wine-bibbers and wassailers, still unrepentant, trying to sing a catch in their Stygian lake, –if the Walden nymphs will pardon the comparison, for though there are almost no weeds, there are frogs there,– who would fain keep up the hilarious rules of their old festal tables, though their voices have waxed hoarse and solemnly grave, mocking at mirth, and the wine has lost its flavor, and become only liquor to distend their paunches, and sweet intoxication never comes to drown the memory of the past, but mere saturation and waterloggedness and distention. The most aldermanic, with his chin upon a heart-leaf, which serves for a napkin to his drooling chaps, under this northern shore quaffs a deep draught of the once scorned water, and passes round the cup with the ejaculation tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk, tr-r-r-oonk! and straightway comes over the water from some distant cove the same password repeated, where the next in seniority and girth has gulped down to his mark; and when this observance has made the circuit of the shores, then ejaculates the master of ceremonies, with satisfaction, tr-r-r-oonk! and each in his turn repeats the same down to the least distended, leakiest, and flabbiest paunched, that there be no mistake; and then the bowl goes round again and again, until the sun disperses the morning mist, and only the patriarch is not under the pond, but vainly bellowing troonk from time to time, and pausing for a reply. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1214

Maud or Matilda Fitzwalter repulsed the intimate advances of King John, and so he had her held in the northeast turret of the White Tower at the . There he sent in to her a meal that included a poisoned egg. No more Mr. Nice Guy: “If I can’t have at you, nobody’s going to have at you.” LONDON

When King John invaded Scotland, Castle Dunbar had been erected on the cliffs overlooking the port town of Dunbar by the River Forth on the south shore of the entrance to the North Sea inlet known as the Firth of Forth.

Unable to invest Castle Dunbar, this kingly If-I-Can’t-Invest-You had to go back home to England — but first of course he lay waste to the surrounding countryside. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1291

Dukes, Earls, Marquises, and Viscounts Clan Dunbar had in abundance. Sir Robert Douglas would remark that “Second only to the Cummings, and of course, the Royal family, the Dunbars are the greatest family of Scotland.” After King Alexander died in this year without an heir, Patrick the 8th Earl of Dunbar was one of ten competitors for the throne of Scotland at Berwick upon Tweed — but was not selected. King was accepted as Overlord of Scotland.

CLAN DUNBAR HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1296

April 27, Friday (Old Style): The 1st Battle of Dunbar. King Edward I of England sent an army of invasion under the Earl of Surrey to punish for having neglected to assist the King while he was in France. The 8th Earl of Dunbar sided with King Edward I but was thwarted by Black Aggie (Agnes, Countess of Dunbar), who secured possession of Castle Dunbar and invested it with the Scots.2

John Comyn, captured at the Battle of Dunbar and imprisoned in the Tower of London, would be released. Sir John de Mentieth, captured at the Battle and taken to the Tower, would be created in recognition of his help in the capture of Sir .John Athol, Earl of Athol, captured at the Battle and taken to the Tower, would be freed upon giving a hostage and undertaking to serve with the English army against France. John de Baliol, King of Scotland, who would surrender after the Battle and be taken to the Tower, would spend three years there before the Pope would intercede and he would be banished to France. LONDON

2. Black Aggie, as she was known on account of her dark eyes and complexion, was the daughter of the and the wife of the of Dunbar. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1308

In Scotland, the Battle of Inverurie, then the Battle of Brander. “Herschip” of Buchan. The submitted to .

The son of Maldred, brother to the King Duncan who had died in 1040, had been granted the town of Dunbar and its adjoining lands, and in consequence during the ensuing century his descendants had adopted “Dunbar” as their hereditary surname. The first of these Dunbar clansmen to be referred to as the earl of March, Patrick Dunbar, died in this year. Here is the clan : HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS (Eventually this assumed name “Dunbar” would become a famous one — as in “Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau.”) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1314

In this year King Edward II of England banned the playing of football, there having been entirely too much bloodshed between his own when they should instead have been shedding the blood of foreigners.

SPORTS

This turned out to be insufficient: Douglas captured Roxburgh and Randolph captured Edinburgh. Despite the fact that the English weren’t wasting time playing any football, the obtained Scottish independence and after this battle King Edward II of England was obliged to flee to Castle Dunbar, where he was allowed inside by Patrick Dunbar, 10th earl of March before boarding a boat that would return him to his digs at Berwick upon Tweed.

Had Earl Dunbar detained Edward the English nation might have been forced to recognize Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland! –But since Dunbar was one of the competing claimants for the Scottish throne, it wasn’t in his interest to detain the King of England while the monarch was in this window of his vulnerability. DUNBAR FAMILY

(I’ll bet you didn’t know that one of the ancestors of Henry David Thoreau could have put Robert the Bruce on the throne of Scotland — and wouldn’t do it!) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1320

April 6, Sunday (Old Style): The , the “Scottish Declaration of Independence,” was signed by the assembled local nobility in Arbroath Abbey. The Declaration was addressed to the Pope because he had thrown his support to King Edward II of England and had excommunicated Robert the Bruce. The text explained that the Bruce had rescued his country from a dreadful situation and that for this they were going to support him in all things. Among the signatories was Patrick Dunbar, 10th earl of March, who had received Edward into after his flight from Bannockburn in 1314, and thus had enabled him to return to his own kingdom. The most famous soundbyte from the text is: DUNBAR FAMILY

“For, so long as a hundred remain alive, we will never in any degree be subject to the dominion of the English. Since not for glory, riches or honours do we fight, but for freedom alone, which no man loses but with his life.”

The full text of this Declaration of Arbroath is carried on the following two screens (as rendered, of course, into English that is intelligible to modern readers.) READ THE FULL TEXT

Patrick, in addition to being the 8th Earl of Dunbar after Gospatric, and possessing also the title and privileges of the 10th earl of March, had been one of the contestants against the Bruce for the crown of Scotland but had chosen to withdraw this claim and swear allegiance instead to the previous English monarch, Edward I. Patrick’s son and heir, the husband of the famous “Black Aggie,” also had sworn fealty to the English crown, to the son Edward II, at least at first. However, the son had here become one of the signers of this Declaration. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

To the most Holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord John, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his humble and devout sons Duncan, Earl of , Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Lord of Man and of Annandale, Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March, Malise, , Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, William, Earl of Ross, Magnus, Earl of Caithness and , and William, ; Walter, Steward of Scotland, William Soules, Butler of Scotland, James, Lord of Douglas, Roger Mowbray, David, Lord of Brechin, David Graham, Ingram Umfraville, John , guardian of the earldom of Menteith, Alexander Fraser, Gilbert Hay, Constable of Scotland, Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland, Henry St Clair, John Graham, David Lindsay, William Oliphant, Patrick Graham, John Fenton, William Abernethy, David Wemyss, William Mushet, Fergus of Ardrossan, Eustace Maxwell, William Ramsay, William Mowat, Alan Murray, Donald Campbell, John Cameron, Reginald Cheyne, Alexander Seton, Andrew Leslie, and Alexander Straiton, and the other barons and freeholders and the whole community of the realm of Scotland send all manner of filial reverence, with devout kisses of his blessed feet. Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner. The high qualities and deserts of these people, were they not otherwise manifest, gain glory enough from this: that the King of kings and Lord of lords, our Lord Jesus Christ, after His Passion and Resurrection, called them, even though settled in the uttermost parts of the earth, almost the first to His most holy faith. Nor would He have them confirmed in that faith by merely anyone but by the first of His Apostles -- by calling, though second or third in rank -- the most gentle Saint Andrew, the Blessed Peter's brother, and desired him to keep them under his protection as their patron forever. The Most Holy Fathers your predecessors gave careful heed to these things and bestowed many favours and numerous privileges on this same kingdom and people, as being the special charge of the Blessed Peter's brother. Thus our nation under their protection did indeed live in freedom and peace up to the time when that mighty prince the King of the English, Edward, the father of the one who reigns today, when our kingdom had no head and our people harboured no malice or treachery and were then unused to wars or invasions, came in the guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy. The deeds of cruelty, massacre, violence, pillage, arson, imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns, and yet other outrages without number which he committed against our people, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor rank, no one could describe nor fully imagine unless he had seen them with his own eyes. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1338

Agnes of Dunbar, countess of March, the wife of the Patrick Dunbar 10th earl of March who had signed the Declaration of Arbroath, was known as “Black Aggie” on account of her dark eyes and complexion. She was the daughter of Robert the Bruce’s friend Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray. It was she who led the defense of the coastal fortress of Dunbar Castle for many weeks against English armies which were under the leadership of the Earl of Salisbury and of Arundel. The siege was eventually abandoned after 40 men, under the leadership of Alexander Ramsay,3 managed to get supplies in by sea past the English blockading force. Salisbury would write of Black Aggie that: She kept a stir in tower and trench, That brawling, boisterous Scottish wench. Came I early, came I late, I found Agnes at the gate.

The earldom of Moray would devolve upon Black Aggie and her sister Isobel, and ultimately the estates of Moray and Dunbar would pass to this Isobel Dunbar’s children. The earldoms of March and Dunbar would devolve onto her child George Dunbar, whose brother John Dunbar would be made earl of Moray.

3. Thoreau would meet an Alexander Ramsey on the riverboat in Minnesota. As a descendant of the Dunbars, would he recognize this famous name? HDT WHAT? INDEX

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But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of Him Who though He afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most tireless Prince, King and Lord, the Lord Robert. He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, met toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Macabaeus or Joshua and bore them cheerfully. Him, too, divine providence, his right of succession according to or laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made our Prince and King. To him, as to the man by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, we are bound both by law and by his merits that our freedom may be still maintained, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand. Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself. Therefore it is, Reverend Father and Lord, that we beseech your Holiness with our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts, inasmuch as you will in your sincerity and goodness consider all this, that, since with Him Whose Vice-Regent on earth you are there is neither weighing nor distinction of Jew and Greek, Scotsman or Englishman, you will look with the eyes of a father on the troubles and privation brought by the English upon us and upon the Church of God. May it please you to admonish and exhort the King of the English, who ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings or more, to leave us Scots in peace, who live in this poor little Scotland, beyond which there is no dwelling-place at all, and covet nothing but our own. We are sincerely willing to do anything for him, having regard to our condition, that we can, to win peace for ourselves. This truly concerns you, Holy Father, since you see the savagery of the heathen raging against the Christians, as the sins of Christians have indeed deserved, and the frontiers of Christendom being pressed inward every day; and how much it will tarnish your Holiness's memory if (which God forbid) the Church suffers eclipse or scandal in any branch of it during your time, you must perceive. Then rouse the Christian princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go to help of the Holy Land because of wars they have on hand with their neighbours. The real reason that prevents them is that in making war on their smaller neighbours they find quicker profit and weaker resistance. But how cheerfully our Lord the King and we too would go there if the King of the English would leave us in peace, He from Whom nothing is hidden well knows; and we profess and declare it to you as the Vicar of Christ and to all Christendom. But if your Holiness puts too much faith in the tales the English tell and will not give sincere belief to all this, nor refrain from favouring them to our prejudice, then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge. To conclude, we are and shall ever be, as far as duty calls us, ready to do your will in all things, as obedient sons to you as His Vicar; and to Him as the Supreme King and Judge we commit the maintenance of our cause, casting our cares upon Him and firmly trusting that He will inspire us with courage and bring our enemies to nought. May the Most High preserve you to his Holy Church in holiness and health and grant you length of days. Given at the monastery of Arbroath in Scotland on the sixth day of the month of April in the year of grace thirteen hundred and twenty and the fifteenth year of the reign of our King aforesaid. Endorsed: Letter directed to our Lord the Supreme Pontiff by the community of Scotland. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1346

October 17, Tuesday (Old Style): Patrick, 9th earl of Dunbar and 10th earl of March, had married Agnes Randolph, daughter of the earl of Moray. When both her brother and her father died in a battle that took place on this day to the west of Durham, a battle between the defending English under William Zouche, Archbishop of York and an invading Scots army under King David II of Scotland, she would inherit Moray, thus transforming her husband Patrick as of this date into “the earl of Dunbar, March, and Moray” (it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good). Here is the battle as it would be depicted by Jean Froissart:

DUNBAR FAMILY Patrick and Agnes would have no children, so the title would pass to her sister Isabella, whose husband was Patrick’s cousin, Patrick of Wester Spott. Their first son George would become the 10th earl of Dunbar and 11th earl of March, while their third son John Dunbar would become the 5th earl of Moray. John would pass his title to his son Thomas Dunbar the 6th earl of Moray, who would pass it to his son Thomas Dunbar the 7th HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS earl of Moray who would pass it to James Dunbar the 8th earl of Moray. James would marry Isabella Innes, his cousin. She would die before a Papal dispensation could be granted for the marriage, and thus the title of earl of Moray would pass to its current holder. Their son Alexander Dunbar would become the 1st baron of Westfield, a title which is held in our contemporary era by Sir Archibald Dunbar of Westfield. George, 10th earl of Dunbar and March, would pass his title to his son Sir George Dunbar of Kilconquhar, who would become 11th earl of Dunbar and March. King James I, concerned about the threat posed by having such a rich man at the border of his Kingdom, would dispossess this 11th earl, confiscating his title and lands. The dispossessed George Dunbar of Kilconquhar would die in 1457. George’s son Patrick would become the 1st baron of in Galloway, which is the title Sir James Michael Dunbar holds as the 14th baron, in the Year of our Lord 1999. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1369

Castle Dunbar received the status of Royal Burgh.

With the death of , Jean Froissart accepted the patronage of Joanna, Duchess of Brabant. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1429

King discontinued ransom payments to England in favor of using the remainder of the taxation in the purchase of cannon and luxury goods from Flanders.

The 15th century would be both the zenith and the nadir of the Earl of Dunbar. In this year John Dunbar, Earl of Moray was murdered. He had married Marjorie, daughter of King Robert II, and they had had two sons: Thomas the husband of the heiress of Frendraught and James who would become 4th Earl of Moray and would be the last of that male line. He had also had a 2nd marriage before his murder, and this 2nd marriage had produced a son, Sir Alexander of Westfield, who would become the 1st Baron of Mochrum and would be the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS ancestor of the hereditary Sheriffs of Moray. SCOTLAND DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1435

English talks with France broke down, precipitating an alliance between Burgundy and France and a request from France for Scottish involvement in the war on the continent, and for the fulfillment of the promised marriage of Princess Margaret to the Dauphin of France.

The earldom of Mar reverted to the crown of Scotland upon the earl’s death without heir, along with the lordships of Garioch and Badenoch.

This was the year of the death of Columba Dunbar, Bishop of Moray, whose effigy is still to be seen in the ruins of . King James I of Scotland had come to regard the Earl of March as too much of a threat to his sovereignty, due to the holder’s too-familiar dealings with the English. In this year the king declared all lands and titles pertaining to this prominent clan to be forfeit. The Dunbars, who had been among the possessors, had become the dispossessed. SCOTLAND DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1457

When Sir Thomas Beaumont, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, founder of the Beaumont family, died, a son succeeded as Sir John Beaumont. (This wasn’t the poet, who wouldn’t be born for more than a century.)

King James II of Scotland deprived Sir George de Dunbar of Kilconquhar, 11th earl of Dunbar, 4th Earl of March, of those titles. He had been the richest man in the kingdom, but all his land and possessions were forfeit. Eventually, however, five branches of this once princely house of Dunbar would attain to baronetcies: • Mochrum in Galloway (the Senior of this Line) • Durn in Banffshire • Northfield in Moray • Boath in Nairn • Hempriggs in Caithness

CLAN DUNBAR HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1460

In this timeframe, preparation on parchment at Paris, for François II, Duke of Brittany (1458-1488) among others, of CÉRÉMONIES ET ORDONNANCES À GAGE DE BATAILLE (CEREMONIES AND EDICTS FOR TRIAL BY COMBAT), which laid out the proper procedures for resolution of a quarrel by means of a trial by combat, staged in an enclosed space before a panel of noble judges, whose task was to assess the worthiness of each blow. It seems clear that, at least in France, there was not a perception that this sort of engagement needed to proceed all the way to the death or serious wounding of one of the participants.

It would have been sometime between this year and 1465 that the Scottish poet William Dunbar was born, presumably in East Lothian, to an obscure branch of the Dunbar clan which could secure for him no advantages whatever, social or otherwise. SCOTLAND DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1479

In this year William Dunbar may have been granted an MA degree by St. Andrews. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1488

To prevent its falling into English hands, by order of the Scots parliament the East Lothian coastal fortress of Castle Dunbar was temporarily dismantled.

King James III of Scotland was murdered. He was succeeded by James IV (-1513).

At about this point, long after his death, William Wallace was being celebrated by Blind Harry (circa 1450- 1491) in the rather inaccurate poem entitled “The Wallace.” (A modernized English translation of the poem by William Hamilton of Gilbertfeld (1665-1751) would influence Robert Burns and James Hogg.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1490

During this decade King James IV would order the reconstruction of the East Lothian coastal fortress of Castle Dunbar, verging on the entrance to the Firth of Forth:

It was at about this point that David Lyndsay was born.

Robert Henryson died, probably in .

Among the earliest surviving works of Scots prose are translations from French by Sir Gilbert Hay (florut 1450); however the honor of being the first author of an original prose work in Scots is usually given to the philosopher John Ireland (circa 1450-1496) for his book “The Meroure of Wyssdome” (“The Mirror of Wisdom”). Fiction would have to wait another century and a half before making its first appearance. SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1500

The William Dunbar who eventually would be termed, by Walter Scott, the “darling of the Scottish Muses,” was at this point granted, as a token of royal esteem, due to his abject penury, a pension of £10 per year. Here, I’d like to make sure you’re not short of pocket money. He would travel both to England and to France in King James IV’s service, and may well have done some of this traveling as a Franciscan novice. He would never, however, attain to a rank higher than that of Friar, while meanwhile a better-connected relative Alexander Dunbar, Prior of Pluscarden, was relentlessly laundering the incomes and properties of this church asset into the coffers of his relatives:

Belief does leap, trust does not tarry, Office does flit, and courts do vary, Purpose does change as wind and rain; Which to consider is a pain. The people so wicked are of feiris [manners] The fruitless earth all witness bears, The air infected and profane; Which to consider is a pain.

The dream allegory “The Goldyn Targe” was one of his earlier poems.

Fifes were popular. The flute we know, which we hold sidewise to our right, is referred to technically as the flauto traverso or cross flute or German flute (to distinguish it from the common flute or recorder, from duct flutes such as the Arabic nay, from panpipes, from the nose flute, etc.). In the 16th Century in Europe, a tenor flute pitched in the key of G would be played in concert with a descant flute pitched in the key of D and a bass flute pitched in the key of C. Typically, these early flutes would be fashioned of boxwood, would be fashioned in one piece as a straight tube, and typically they would have six finger holes with no keys.

WALDEN: In warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute, and saw the perch, which I seemed to have charmed, hovering around me, and the moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed with the wrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond adventurously, from time to time, in dark summer nights, with a companion, and making a fire close to the water’s edge, which we thought attracted the fishes, we caught pouts with a bunch of worms strung on a thread; and when we had done, far in the night, threw the burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, which, coming down into the pond, were quenched with a loud hissing, and we were suddenly groping in total darkness. Through this, whistling a tune, we took our way to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my home by the shore. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1501

Gawin Douglas’s initial literary production was a poem of more than 2,000 lines, THE PALICE OF HONOUR. It was a dream-allegory in 9-line stanzas. The poet incautiously slanders the love-court of Venus, is pardoned for this offense, joins in a procession, and is allowed to view the glories of her palace. This conceit he dedicated to King James IV, providing the monarch with a commendation of virtue and honor. It would seem that there was an edition of this put out by Thomas Davidson, printer, at Edinburgh in about 1540, but no copy of that edition has survived. The earliest still-extant edition was printed at London by William Copland in about 1553. Still surviving also is an Edinburgh edition from the press of Henry Charteris dated 1579. At about this point in time Gawin Douglas was preferred to the deanery or provostship of the collegiate church of St Giles in Edinburgh, which he would hold with his parochial charges. From this date until the (September 1513), he would appear to have occupied himself in literary work in addition to the performance of his ecclesiastical duties. No more than four works by him are known to exist: THE PALICE OF HONOUR, CONSCIENCE, his major translation of Virgil’s ÆNEIS, and possibly KING HART. SCOTLAND LIFE OF GAWIN DOUGLAS LIFE OF GAWIN DOUGLAS

William Dunbar was in England, presumably helping to arrange for the 1503 marriage of James IV with Margaret Tudor. He wrote “To The City Of London.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1 London, thou art of town{.e}s A per se. 2 Soveraign of cities, semeliest in sight, 3 Of high renoun, riches, and royaltie; 4 Of lordis, barons, and many goodly knyght; 5 Of most delectable lusty ladies bright; 6 Of famous prelatis in habitis clericall; 7 Of merchauntis full of substaunce and myght: 8 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 9 Gladdith anon, thou lusty Troy Novaunt, 10 Citie that some tyme cleped was New Troy, 11 In all the erth, imperiall as thou stant, 12 Pryncesse of townes, of pleasure, and of joy, 13 A richer restith under no Christen roy; 14 For manly power, with craftis naturall, 15 Fourmeth none fairer sith the flode of Noy: 16 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 17 Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie, 18 Most myghty carbuncle of vertue and valour; 19 Strong Troy in vigour and in strenuytie; 20 Of royall cities rose and geraflour; 21 Empresse of town{.e}s, exalt in honour; 22 In beawtie beryng the crone imperiall; 23 Swete paradise precelling in pleasure: 24 London, thow art the floure of Cities all. 25 Above all ryvers thy Ryver hath renowne, 26 Whose beryall stremys, pleasaunt and preclare, 27 Under thy lusty wallys renneth down, 28 Where many a swanne doth swymme with wyngis fare; 29 Where many a barge doth saile, and row with are, 30 Where many a ship doth rest with toppe-royall. 31 O! towne of townes, patrone and not-compare: 32 London, thou art the floure of Cities all. 33 Upon thy lusty Brigge of pylers white 34 Been merchauntis full royall to behold; 35 Upon thy stretis goth many a semely knyght 36 In velvet gownes and cheyn{.e}s of fyne gold. 37 By Julyus Cesar thy Tour founded of old 38 May be the hous of Mars victoryall, 39 Whos artillary with tonge may not be told: 40 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 41 Strong be thy wallis that about the standis; 42 Wise be the people that within the dwellis; 43 Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis; 44 Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis; 45 Riche be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis; 46 Fair be thy wives, right lovesom, white and small; 47 Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis: 48 London, thow art the flour of Cities all. 49 Thy famous Maire, by pryncely governaunce, 50 With swerd of justice the rulith prudently. 51 No Lord of Parys, Venyce, or Floraunce 52 In dignytie or honoure goeth to hym nye. 53 He is exampler, lood{.e}-ster, and guye; 54 Principall patrone and roose orygynalle, 55 Above all Maires as maister moost worthy: 56 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1503

The earliest known use of the term “fuck” in written English4 predates the 16th Century and is from a curious little piece entitled “Flen flyys” composed in a mixture of Latin and English: Non sunt in celi quia fuccant uuiuys of heli. [They are not in heaven because they fuck the wives of Ely.]

This word fuccant is not Latin but pseudo-Latin and in the manuscript is written down as a cipher (the actual holographic inscription “gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk” is readily decoded because each character merely represents the character preceding it in the alphabet), so whoever created this curious little piece about the friars of Cambridge, England knew that not only were these guys being naughty friars in fucking the wives of the town of Ely (a nearby town), but also that he was himself being the naughty one simply by writing such a thing down on paper.

4. You will note the careful limitations built into such a construction. Obviously, this is limited to what we culturally describe as “literature,” since our non-literature as found on the walls of public toilets has always been replete with references to all the bodily functions. Obviously, also, this is limited to languages resembling English, since the Emperor Augustus Caesar is suspected of having been guilty in his youth of repeated use of the proper Latin verb for fucking, futuo, in a quasi-poetic epigram as of 41 BCE:

Quod futuit Glaphyran Antonius, hanc mihi poenam Fulvia constituit, se quoque uti futuam. Fulviam ego ut futuam? quid si me Manius oret pedicem? faciam? non, puto, si sapiam. “aut futue aut pugnemus” ait. quid quod mihi vita carior est ipsa mentula? signa canant! HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

During this year William Dunbar prepared a nuptial song, “The Thrissill and the Rois,” in celebration of the wedding of King James IV of Scotland with Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII.

There is a literary appearance of the term fukkit in a language resembling English, in Dunbar’s poem that begins “In secreit place...” that presumably was composed by this year at the latest (since in 1504 he would take holy orders). The other early recorded uses of the word “fuck” are also by Scottish authors — possibly in its day this reference was hardly more questionable than Chaucer’s “swive.”5 Beginning with a “y” character that looks sorta like a backward script numeral three, Line 13 of Dunbar’s poem reads as follows: [Y]it be his feiris he wald haif fukkit: In the notes this line translates out more or less as “were this per his longing, he would be fucking her.” The rhyme scheme is croppit / bedroppit / gukkit / chukkit / ourgane / fukkit / ane: croppit, kemd and = combed and trimmed bedroppit = dewed gukkit, peirt and = impulsive and foolish behavior he chukkit = he diddled her ourgane, with the glaikkis he wer = with sexual desire he was overcome fukkit, he wald haif = he would be in sexual congress ane, my bony = my bonny one

5. Dunbar, William, 1460?-1520? THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DUNBAR / EDITED BY JAMES KINSLEY. Oxford: Clarendon Press; NY: Oxford UP, 1979, pages 40-42, poem that begins “In secreit place...”; Read, Allen Walker. “An Obscenity Symbol,” American Speech, 9 n. 4, (December 1934): 264-278; Baxter, J.W. WILLIAM DUNBAR. 1952 READ DUNBAR’S POEMS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Here in full are the first two stanzas of the poem: In secreit place this hindir nycht I hard ane bern say till a bricht: My hunny, my houp, my hairt, my heill, I haif bene lang [y]our lufar leill And can of [y]ow gett confort nane; How lang will [y]e with denger deill? [Y]e brek my hart, my bony ane.

His bony berd wes kemd and croppit Bot all with kaill it wes bedroppit And he wes townsyche, peirt and gukkit. He clappit fast, he kist, he chukkit As with the glaikkis he wer ourgane-- [Y]it be his feiris he wald haif fukkit: [Y]e brek my hairt, my bony ane. As the poem continues, the town lad’s need is never satisfied by the country maid, so the deployment of “fukkit” is in regard to intent rather than accomplishment. –But now we know that Thoreau inherited his randy sense of humor from his mom’s side of the family! DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1504

By this point William Dunbar was attired in the robes of a priest. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1508

William Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makaris Quhen he was Sek” was printed, along with five other of his poems: Lament for the Makaris Quhen he was Sek 1 I that in heill wes and gladnes, 32 Timor mortis conturbat me. 2 Am trublit now with gret seiknes, 33 He sparis no lord for his piscence, 3 And feblit with infermite; 34 Na clerk for his intelligence; 4 Timor mortis conturbat me. 35 His awfull strak may no man fle; 5 Our plesance heir is all vane glory, 36 Timor mortis conturbat me. 6 This fals warld is bot transitory, 37 Art-magicianis, and astrologgis, 7 The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle; 38 Rethoris, logicianis, and theologgis, 8 Timor mortis conturbat me. 39 Thame helpis no conclusionis sle; 9 The stait of man dois change and vary, 40 Timor mortis conturbat me. 10 Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary, 41 In medicyne the most practicianis, 11 Now dansand mery, now like to dee; 42 Lechis, surrigianis, and phisicianis, 12 Timor mortis conturbat me. 43 Thame self fra ded may not supple; 13 No stait in erd heir standis sickir; 44 Timor mortis conturbat me. 14 As with the wynd wavis the wickir, 45 I se that makaris amang the laif 15 Wavis this warldis vanite. 46 Playis heir ther pageant, syne gois to graif; 16 Timor mortis conturbat me. 47 Sparit is nocht ther faculte; 17 On to the ded gois all estatis, 48 Timor mortis conturbat me. 18 Princis, prelotis, and potestatis, 49 He hes done petuously devour, 19 Baith riche and pur of al degre; 50 The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour, 20 Timor mortis conturbat me. 51 The Monk of Bery, and Gower, all thre; 21 He takis the knychtis in to feild, 52 Timor mortis conturbat me. 22 Anarmit under helme and scheild; 53 The gude Syr Hew of Eglintoun, 23 Victour he is at all mellie; 54 And eik Heryot, and Wyntoun, 24 Timor mortis conturbat me. 55 He hes tane out of this cuntre; 25 That strang unmercifull tyrand 56 Timor mortis conturbat me. 26 Takis, on the moderis breist sowkand, 57 That scorpion fell hes done infek 27 The bab full of benignite; 58 Maister Johne Clerk, and Jame Afflek, 28 Timor mortis conturbat me. 59 Fra balat making and tragidie; 29 He takis the campion in the stour, 60 Timor mortis conturbat me. 30 The capitane closit in the tour, 61 Holland and Barbour he hes berevit; 31 The lady in bour full of bewte; 62 Allace! that he nocht with us levit. SCOTLAND

READ DUNBAR’S POEMS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

He takis the campion in the stour HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1510

William Dunbar was granted, as a token of royal esteem, a pension of £80 per year. SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1511

Accompanying the Queen to Aberdeen, Scotland, William Dunbar wrote “Blyth Aberdeen” in celebration of the amusements there offered.

READ DUNBAR’S POEMS

The flute available in Europe at this time was the narrow Zwerchpfeiff, having 6 finger-holes.

The “Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie” was stylized abuse formally exchanged between William Dunbar and his professional rival Walter Kennedy (circa 1460-circa 1508), more or less as a royal roast, or as “doing the numbers.” This “flyting” was a form of verse battle, and Dunbar’s poem packs an extraordinary number of insults into its 69 stanzas.6 (Dunbar would mention his rival favorably in “The Lament for the Makaris” which gives useful information on a number of Scottish poets not much of whose work has survived.)

6. In this venue, Dunbar is in fact credited with having been the very first to attempt to incorporate “the f-word” into a printed work of courtly literature. –So, I guess now we know that Henry Thoreau derived his scatological sense of humor from his mom’s side of the family. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1513

September 9, Friday (Old Style):After the English victory under Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey at Flodden Edge near Branxton in Northumberland, and King James IV of Scotland’s death there on Flodden Field, since there is no record of William Dunbar’s receiving his pension subsequently, it would appear that he would have been receiving instead the benefice which he had so often demanded in verse. Robert, the 13th chieftain of the Eliot or Elliot clan, were slaughtered in this battle along with the king and many males of the Scottish nobility, such as Gawin Douglas’s two elder brothers, and many members of the higher clergy. The king would be succeeded by his infant son James V, whose mother Margaret Tudor would assume the regency. Jane, sister of the 3rd Elliot to be a Baronet, would compose a poem in honor of the men lost in the Battle of Flodden, titled “The Flowers of the Forest.” Subsequent to this battle Gawin Douglas would be completely absorbed in affairs of state, and there would be no further literary production. Instead he would seek to play a dominant role as one of the Lords of Council, and would make attempt after attempt to attain for himself one or more of the many sees, including the archbishopric of , that had fallen vacant due to this defeat. For a few weeks after the battle, also, Douglas and some of his colleagues of the council would be attempting to console and counsel the queen during her period of intense grief. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1520

It was sometime during this decade that the Scottish poet William Dunbar, an antique relative of the American poet Henry Thoreau, died. SCOTLAND

CLAN DUNBAR Dunbar has become a dominant figure among what are commonly known as the “Scottish Chaucerians,” for instance Robert Henryson, Walter Kennedy, and Gavin Douglas, in what has since come to be regarded as the golden age of Scottish poetry. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1566

Upon the death of Rizzio, Mary Queen of Scots and her spouse Lord Darnley took refuge in the East Lothian coastal fortress of Castle Dunbar.

William Hunnis, resident in Southward, was entered in the Booke of Stoppes of the Company of Grocers of London as having paid his two shillings, dues for the year. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1567

February 9, Sunday (1566, Old Style): Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen of Scots and father of the infant James, was murdered, probably by the Earl of Bothwell. Mary Queen of Scots would again take refuge in Castle Dunbar.

She would marry again, with Bothwell, be imprisoned, and be forced to abdicate in favor of her infant, who would become James VI, King of Scotland (under, of course, for the first 18 years, a regency while he was being educated). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1568

May 13, Thursday (Old Style): Mary Queen of Scots was defeated at the . Upon her abdication, Castle Dunbar was by order of the parliament dismantled for a 2d and final time, and began to fall into its present permanent ruin overlooking the Victoria harbor. (It presently hosts a large colony of kittiwakes.)7 DUNBAR FAMILY

7. Mary Queen of Scots would escape to England and be imprisoned by at Fotheringay Castle. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1600

During the 17th century Dunbar, on the east coast of Scotland where the Firth of Forth verges into the North Sea, would be a significant fishing port. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1604

July 3, Tuesday (Old Style): In London, Johannes de Laet got married with Jacobmijntje van Loor, daughter of a well- to-do Anglo-Dutch merchant.

Sir George Hume, Treasurer of Scotland, who had accompanied King James to England, was further created Earl of Dunbar in the Scotch peerage. (He was also a Knight of the Garter, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Master of the Wardrobe, and in a few days would be created an English peer, as Lord Berwick — through “never returning when he was employed, without the work performed that he was sent to do” he had made himself quite the mofo.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1630

Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandfather Robert Dunbar would be born in about the 1630-1634 timeframe, presumably in Scotland, to parents unknown, and shortly after 1650 would emigrate to Hingham

MA on the south shore of the Boston Bay where he and Rose ——— Dunbar, Thoreau’s great-great-great- grandmother, would be farmers living on Scotland Street. Robert would die on September 19, 1693 and Rose would die on November 10, 1700, there in that raw new town on the shore of the bay in America. His will is dated September 13, 1693 and in it he bequeathed “to wife Rose a living it) lily how dwelling- house, and the use of all the land, which I give to my sons Joseph and Joshua, the whole term of her keeping the name of Dunbar; still in case of necessity she may sell or let said land for her maintenance.” To sons John, Joseph, and Peter, the home tied. To son Joshua “the rest of my land as far as the river.” He bequeathed to James Dunbar, “the son of my son James, deceased,” 210. He further bequeathed to Joseph Dunbar “enough apples, annually, from the trees in my orchard to make two barrels of cyder.” To his three daughters “Mary Dunbar, Sarah Dunbar, and Hannah Dunbar, all my land on the other side of the river, share and share alike, and all my indoor moveables after my wife’s decease.” The inventory of his estate, appraised September 28, 1693, included dwelling-house and land, 2130; two oxen, seven swine, two cows, two calves, household goods, etc. This couple’s eight sons and three daughters were: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS • John Dunbar, born on December 1, 1657 in Hingham. • Mary Dunbar, daughter born on October 25, 1660 in Hingham, got married on June 28, 1698 with Isaac Harris of Bridgewater. • Joseph Dunbar, born on March 13, 1661/1662 in Hingham. • James Dunbar, born on June 5, 1664 in Hingham, removed to Bridgewater. • Robert Dunbar, born on November 1, 1666 in Hingham, died soon. • Peter Dunbar, great-great-grandfather of Henry David Thoreau, born on September 6, 1668 in Hingham. • Joshua Dunbar, born on October 6, 16M in Hingham. • Robert Dunbar, born on January 31, 1672/1673 in Hingham, died on October 5, 1673. • Sarah Dunbar, daughter (birth not recorded) in Hingham, got married on January 13, 1695/1696 with Benjamin Garnet. • Hannah Dunbar, daughter born on May 31, 1677 in Hingham, married (probably on November 5, 1709) with Edmund Tileston of Plympton. • Benjamin Dunbar (birth not recorded) in Hingham, died August 23, 1688. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1650

Charles II was compelled by the Scots to sign the National Covenant, as a condition of being crowned at Scone in 1651 before fleeing abroad.

Shortly after the events of this year, Henry Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandfather Robert Dunbar would be emigrating to Hingham in the Plymouth Colony. This was of course the time of the Puritan Revolution and Oliver Cromwell’s army was devastating all Scottish resistance. Since Robert would have been in his early 20s

at that time, he may well have served in the Scottish military and may at this point have been fearing for life and fortune. When he fled he must have been able to take funds to make a start for himself in the New World, for Hingham records indicate that for a number of years only two other citizens of that town paid higher taxes. In the New World, he and Rose —— Dunbar, Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandmother, would rear three daughters and eight sons. Robert would die on September 19, 1693 and Rose would die in November 1700, there in Hingham in the American colony.8

8. The Robert Dunbar (1630-1693) who would be spending his life in Hingham had been born in Scotland but we don’t know who his parents were. Many have conflated Ninian Dunbar’s son Robert with this Robert Dunbar but they must have been two different persons because the Robert in Hingham was raising a family there while the Robert who was Ninian’s son was inheriting Ninian’s title — and serving in the House of Lords! DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS September 4, Wednesday (Old Style): After Scotland opted to support the exiled Prince of Wales, Charles, it was invaded by the 16,000-man army of Oliver Cromwell, who had just designated himself Lord General of England. The small quay at Dunbar on the coast of Scotland having been damaged during a severe storm, Cromwell’s administrators had provided £300 towards building a new pier and a small harbor.

Cromwell had however been held up in . For what would become known as the 2d battle of Dunbar, the forces of David Leslie had pushed Cromwell’s army back to Dunbar, and had almost starved the English to the point of surrender when on this day Covenanters among the Irish troops demanded that a spirited charge be made at the enemy from their stronghold on Doon Hill about three miles southeast of the town. The charge was a sad mistake, resulting in 3,000 slain Scots and 10,000 Scottish prisoners at the cost of but 20 English lives (at least some of these 10,000 prisoners would find themselves shipped off to the Massachusetts Bay Colony as white slaves ). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

Here is the painting of Oliver Cromwell leading the troops at Dunbar, by Gow:

ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

At the Battle of Dunbar, Edward Whalley again distinguished himself. Colonel William Goffe commanded a regiment. In the battle, 3,000 Scots would be killed outright and 10,000 taken prisoner. Only 9,000 would escape. Of those taken prisoner a number were badly enough wounded that Cromwell did not consider them to represent any real future threat, and they were released. The balance of the prisoners would be force-marched to Durham, and 3,000 would survive this march to find themselves imprisoned in a cathedral. Half of these survivors would perish in the cathedral and the other half would be sent to the New World as slaves. (Most of these Scot warriors transported as slaves to the New World would slide beneath the surface of history without so much as a bubble, but one would become an ancestor of Rhode Island’s famous jumper, Sam Patch.) INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1651

May 28, Wednesday (Old Style): In the New England Historic and Genealogical Society book dated October 1847, typewritten at the top of page 378 is the heading “Scotch Prisoners sent to Massachusetts in 1652 by order of the English Government.” The following pages contain among other things an extract from a letter written by the Reverend John Cotton in Boston to the Lord General Oliver Cromwell, having to do with the 10,000 Scottish fighters who had surrendered at the second battle of Dunbar in 1650, and had been shipped off to the Bay Colony as white slaves: The Scots, whom God delivered into your hands at Dunbarre, and whereof so were sent hither, we have been desirous (as we could) to make their yoke easy. as were sick of the scurvy or other diseases have not wanted physick and shyrur. They have not been sold for slaves to perpetual servitude, but for 6 or 7 or 8 years as we do our owne; and he that bought the most of them (I heare) buildeth houses for them, for every four a house, layeth some acres of ground thereto, which he gave them as their owner, requiring 3 dayes in the weeke to worke for him (by turnes) 4 days for them themselves, and promiseth, as soone as they can repay him the money he layed out for them, he will set them at liberty. ENGLISH CIVIL WAR INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1657

June/July: Friend George Fox visited every county in Wales, accompanied by Friend John ap-John of Wrexham and Edward Edwards of Denbighshire and, for some of the time, Thomas Holme and Richard Hubberthorne.

After I had tarried two First-days at Swarthmore, and had visited Friends in their meetings thereabouts, I passed into Westmoreland, in the same work, till I came to John Audland’s, where there was a general meeting. The night before I had had a vision of a desperate creature that was coming to destroy me, but I got victory over it. And next day in meeting- time came one Otway, with some rude fellows. He rode round about the meeting with his sword or rapier, and would fain have got in through the Friends to me; but the meeting being great, the Friends stood close, so that he could not easily come at me. When he had ridden about several times raging, and found he could not get in, being limited by the Lord’s power, he went away. It was a glorious meeting, ended peaceably, and the Lord’s everlasting power came over all. This wild man went home, became distracted, and not long after died. I sent a paper to John Blakelin to read to him, while he lay ill, showing him his wickedness, and he acknowledged something of it. I had for some time felt drawings on my spirit to go into Scotland, and had sent to Colonel William Osburn of Scotland, desiring him to meet me; and he, with some others, came out of Scotland to this meeting. After it was over (which, he said, was the most glorious meeting that ever he saw in his life), I passed with him and his company into Scotland, having with me Robert Widders, a thundering man against hypocrisy, deceit, and the rottenness of the priests.

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THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS From Wales, Friend George went into Scotland, and one of the towns in which he would successfully preach in the Quaker way was the ancestral home of Henry Thoreau’s mother’s family, and John Muir’s family, on the east coast of Scotland where the Firth of Forth verges into the North Sea, the town of Dunbar: DUNBAR FAMILY

The first night we came into Scotland we lodged at an inn. The innkeeper told us an earl lived about a quarter of a mile off, who had a desire to see me; and had left word at the inn that if ever I came into Scotland, he should be told of it. The innkeeper told us there were three drawbridges to the earl’s house; and that it would be nine o’clock before the third bridge was drawn. Finding we had time in the evening, we walked to his house. He received us very lovingly, and said he would have gone with us on our journey, but that he was before engaged to go to a funeral. After we had spent some time with him, we parted very friendly, and returned to our inn. Next morning we travelled on, and passing through Dumfries, came to Douglas, where we met with some Friends. Thence we passed to the Heads, where we had a blessed meeting in the name of Jesus, and felt Him in the midst. Leaving Heads, we went to Badcow, and had a meeting there, to which abundance of people came, and many were convinced. Amongst them was one called a lady. From thence we passed towards the Highlands to William Osburn’s, where we gathered up the sufferings of Friends, and the principles of the Scotch priests, which may be seen in a book called “The Scotch Priests’ Principles.” Afterwards we returned to Heads, Badcow, and Garshore, where the said lady, Margaret Hambleton, was convinced; who afterwards went to warn Oliver Cromwell and Charles Fleetwood of the day of the Lord that was coming upon them. On First-day we had a great meeting, and several professors came to it. Now, the priests had frightened the people with the doctrine of election and reprobation, telling them that God had ordained the greatest part of men and women for hell; and that, let them pray, or preach, or sing, or do what they would, it was all to no purpose, if they were ordained for hell. Also that God had a certain number elected for heaven, let them do what they would; as David was an adulterer, and Paul a persecutor, yet still they were elected vessels for heaven. So the priests said the fault was not at all in the creature, less or more, but that God had ordained it so. I was led to open to the people the falseness and folly of their priests’ doctrines, and showed how they, the priests, had abused those Scriptures they quoted. Now all that believe in the Light of Christ, as He commands, are in the election, and sit under the teaching of the grace of God, which brings their salvation. But such as turn this grace into wantonness, are in the reprobation; and such as hate the Light, are in the condemnation. So I exhorted all the people to believe in the Light, as Christ commands, and to own the grace of God, their free teacher; and it would assuredly bring them their salvation; for it is sufficient. Many Scriptures were opened concerning reprobation, and the eyes of the people were opened; and a spring of life rose up among them.

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* These things soon came to the priest’s ears; for the people that sat under their dark teachings began to see light, and to come into the covenant of light. The noise was spread over Scotland, amongst the priests, that I was come thither; and a great cry went up among them that all would be spoiled; for, they said, I had spoiled all the honest men and women in England already; so, according to their own account, the worst were left to them. Upon this they gathered great assemblies of priests together, and drew up a number of curses to be read in their several steeple-houses, that all the people might say “Amen” to them. Some few of these I will here set down; the rest may be read in the book before mentioned, of “The Scotch Priests’ Principles.”

The first was, “Cursed is he that saith, Every man hath a light within him sufficient to lead him to salvation; and let all the people say, Amen.”

The second, “Cursed is he that saith, Faith is without sin; and let all the people say, Amen.”

The third, “Cursed is he that denieth the Sabbath-day; and let all the people say, Amen.”

In this last they make the people curse themselves; for on the Sabbath- day (which is the seventh day of the week, which the Jews kept by the command of God to them) they kept markets and fairs, and so brought the curse upon their own heads. Now were the priests in such a rage that they posted to Edinburgh to Oliver Cromwell’s Council there, with petitions against me. The noise was that “all was gone”; for several Friends were come out of England and spread over Scotland, sounding the day of the Lord, preaching the everlasting gospel of salvation, and turning people to Christ Jesus, who died for them, that they might receive His free teaching. After I had gathered the principles of the Scotch priests, and the sufferings of Friends, and had seen the Friends in that part of Scotland settled by the Lord’s power, upon Christ their foundation, I went to Edinburgh, and in the way came to Linlithgow, where lodging at an inn, the innkeeper’s wife, who was blind, received the Word of life, and came under the teaching of Christ Jesus, her Saviour.

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At night there came in abundance of soldiers and some officers, with whom we had much discourse; and some were rude. One of the officers said he would obey the Turk’s or Pilate’s command, if they should command him to guard Christ to crucify Him. So far was he from all tenderness, or sense of the Spirit of Christ, that he would rather crucify the just than suffer for or with them; whereas many officers and magistrates have lost their places before they would turn against the Lord and His Just One. When I had stayed a while at Edinburgh, I went to Leith, where many officers of the army came in with their wives, and many were convinced. Among these Edward Billings’s wife was one. She brought a great deal of coral in her hand, and threw it on the table before me, to see whether I would speak against it or not. I took no notice of it, but declared the Truth to her, and she was reached. There came in many Baptists, who were very rude; but the Lord’s power came over them, so that they went away confounded. Then there came in another sort, and one of them said he would dispute with me; and for argument’s sake would deny there was a God. I told him he might be one of those fools that said in his heart, “There is no God,” but he would know Him in the day of His judgment. So he went his way. * A precious time we had afterwards with several people of account; and the Lord’s power came over all. William Osburn was with me. Colonel Lidcot’s wife, and William Welch’s wife, and several of the officers themselves, were convinced. Edward Billings and his wife at that time lived apart; and she being reached by Truth, and become loving to Friends, we sent for her husband, who came. The Lord’s power reached unto them both, and they joined in it, and agreed to live together in love and unity as man and wife. After this we returned to Edinburgh where many thousands were gathered together, with abundance of priests among them, about burning a witch, and I was moved to declare the day of the Lord amongst them. When I had done, I went thence to our meeting, whither came many rude people and Baptists. The Baptists began to vaunt with their logic and syllogisms; but I was moved in the Lord’s power to thresh their chaffy, light minds. I showed the people that, after that fallacious way of discoursing, they might make white seem black, and black seem white; as, that because a cock had two legs, and each of them had two legs, therefore they were all cocks. Thus they might turn anything into lightness and vanity; but it was not the way of Christ, or His apostles, to teach, speak, or reason after that manner. Hereupon those Baptists went their way; and after they were gone we had a blessed meeting in the Lord’s power, which was over all.

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I mentioned before that many of the Scotch priests, being greatly disturbed at the spreading of Truth, and the loss of their hearers thereby, were gone to Edinburgh to petition the Council against me. When I came from the meeting to the inn where I lodged, an officer belonging to the Council brought me the following order: Thursday, the 8th of October, 1657, at his Highness’ Council in Scotland: Ordered, That George Fox do appear before the Council on Tuesday, the 13th of October next, in the forenoon. — E. DOWNING, Clerk of the Council When he had delivered me the order, he asked me whether I would appear or not. I did not tell him; but asked him if he had not forged the order. He said “No”; that it was a real order from the Council, and he was sent as their messenger with it. When the time came I appeared, and was taken into a great room, where many persons came and looked at me. After awhile the doorkeeper took me into the council-chamber; and as I was going he took off my hat. I asked him why he did so, and who was there that I might not go in with my hat on. I told him I had been before the Protector with my hat on. But he hung up my hat and took me in before them. When I had stood awhile, and they said nothing to me, I was moved of the Lord to say, “Peace be amongst you. Wait in the fear of God, that ye may receive His wisdom from above, by which all things were made and created; that by it ye may all be ordered, and may order all things under your hands to God’s glory.” They asked me what was the occasion of my coming into that nation. I told them I came to visit the Seed of God, which had long lain in bondage under corruption, so that all in the nation who professed the Scriptures, the words of Christ, of the prophets and apostles, might come to the Light, Spirit and power, which they were in who gave them forth. I told them that in and by the Spirit they might understand the Scriptures, and know Christ and God aright, and might have fellowship with them, and one with another. They asked me whether I had any outward business there. I said, “Nay.” Then they asked me how long I intended to stay in that country. I told them I should say little to that; my time was not to be long; yet in my freedom in the Lord I stood, in the will of Him that sent me. Then they bade me withdraw, and the doorkeeper took me by the hand and led me forth. In a little time they sent for me again, and told me that I must depart the nation of Scotland by that day sevennight. I asked them, “Why? What have I done? What is my transgression that you pass such a sentence upon me to depart out of the nation?” They told me they would not dispute with me. I desired them to hear what I had to say to them. They said they would not hear me. I told them, “Pharaoh heard Moses and Aaron, yet he was an heathen; and Herod heard John the Baptist; and you should not be worse than these.” But they cried, “Withdraw, withdraw.”

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Thereupon the doorkeeper took me again by the hand and led me out. I returned to my inn, and continued still in Edinburgh; visiting Friends there and thereabouts, and strengthening them in the Lord. After a little time I wrote a letter to the Council to lay before them their unchristian dealings in banishing me, an innocent man, that sought their salvation and eternal good. After I had spent some time among Friends at Edinburgh and thereabouts, I passed thence to Heads again, where Friends had been in great sufferings. For the Presbyterian priests had excommunicated them, and given charge that none should buy or sell or eat or drink with them. So they could neither sell their commodities nor buy what they wanted; which made it go very hard with some of them; for if they had bought bread or other victuals of any of their neighbors, the priests threatened them so with curses that they would run and fetch it from them again. But Colonel Ashfield, being a justice of the peace in that country, put a stop to the priests’ proceedings. This Colonel Ashfield was afterwards convinced himself, had a meeting settled at his house, declared the Truth, and lived and died in it. After I had visited Friends at and about Heads, and encouraged them in the Lord, I went to Glasgow, where a meeting was appointed; but not one of the town came to it. As I went into the city, the guard at the gates took me before the governor, who was a moderate man. A great deal of discourse I had with him. He was too light to receive the Truth; yet he set me at liberty; so I passed to the meeting. Seeing none of the town’s people came to the meeting, we declared Truth through the town; then passed away, visited Friends’ meetings thereabouts, and returned towards Badcow. Several Friends declared Truth in the steeple-houses and the Lord’s power was with them. Once as I was going with William Osburn to his house there lay a company of rude fellows by the wayside, hid under the hedges and in bushes. Seeing them, I asked him what they were. “Oh,” said he “they are thieves.” Robert Widders, being moved to go and speak to a priest, was left behind, intending to come after. So I said to William Osburn, “I will stay here in this valley, and do thou go and look after Robert Widders”; but he was unwilling to go, being afraid to leave me there alone, because of those fellows, till I told him I feared them not. Then I called to them, asking them what they lay lurking there for, and I bade them come to me; but they were loath to come. I charged them to come up to me, or else it might be worse with them; then they came trembling, for the dread of the Lord had struck them. I admonished them to be honest, and directed them to the Light of Christ in their hearts that by it they might see what an evil it was to follow after theft and robbery; and the power of the Lord came over them. I stayed there till William Osburn and Robert Widders came up, then we passed on together. But it is likely that, if we two had gone away before, they would have robbed Robert Widders when he had come after alone, there being three or four of them.

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We went to William Osburn’s house, where we had a good opportunity to declare the Truth to several people that came in. Then we went among the Highlanders, who were so devilish they were like to have spoiled us and our horses; for they ran at us with pitchforks. But through the Lord’s goodness we escaped them, being preserved by His power. * Thence we passed to Stirling, where the soldiers took us up, and had us to the main guard. After a few words with the officers, the Lord’s power coming over them, we were set at liberty; but no meeting could we get amongst them in the town, they were so closed up in darkness. Next morning there came a man with a horse that was to run a race, and most of the townspeople and officers went to see it. As they came back from the race, I had a brave opportunity to declare the day of the Lord and His Word of life amongst them. Some confessed to it, and some opposed; but the Lord’s truth and power came over them all. Leaving Stirling, we came to Burntisland, where I had two meetings at one Captain Pool’s house; one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. Whilst they went to dine I walked to the seaside, not having freedom to eat with them. Both he and his wife were convinced, and became good Friends afterward; and several officers of the army came in and received the Truth. We passed thence through several other places, till we came to Johnstons, where were several Baptists that were very bitter, and came in a rage to dispute with us. Vain janglers and disputers indeed they were. When they could not prevail by disputing they went and informed the governor against us; and next morning he raised a whole company of foot, and banished me and Alexander Parker, also James Lancaster and Robert Widders, out of the town. As they guarded us through the town, James Lancaster was moved to sing with a melodious sound in the power of God; and I was moved to proclaim the day of the Lord, and preach the everlasting gospel to the people. For the people generally came forth, so that the streets were filled with them, and the soldiers were so ashamed that they said they would rather have gone to Jamaica than guarded us so. But we were put into a boat with our horses, carried over the water, and there left. The Baptists who were the cause of our being thus put out of this town, were themselves, not long after, turned out of the army; and he that was then governor was discarded also when the king came in. Being thus thrust out of Johnstons, we went to another market-town, where Edward Billings and many soldiers were quartered. We went to an inn, and desired to have a meeting in the town, that we might preach the everlasting gospel amongst them. The officers and soldiers said we should have it in the town-hall; but the Scotch magistrates in spite appointed a meeting there that day for the business of the town.

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When the officers of the soldiery understood this, and perceived that it was done in malice, they would have had us go into the town-hall nevertheless. But we told them, “No; by no means; for then the magistrates might inform the governor against us and say, ‘They took the town-hall from us by force, when we were to do our town-business therein.’” We told them we would go to the market-place. They said it was market-day. We replied, “It is so much the better; for we would have all people to hear the Truth and know our principles.” Alexander Parker went and stood upon the market-cross, with a Bible in his hand, and declared the Truth amongst the soldiers and market-people; but the Scots, being a dark, carnal people, gave little heed, and hardly took notice what was said. After awhile I was moved of the Lord to stand up at the cross, and to declare with a loud voice the everlasting Truth, and the day of the Lord that was coming upon all sin and wickedness. Thereupon the people came running out of the town-hall and gathered so together that at last we had a large meeting; for they only sat in the court for a colour to hinder us from having the hall to meet in. When the people were come away the magistrates followed them. Some walked by, but some stayed and heard; and the Lord’s power came over all and kept all quiet. The people were turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for them, and had enlightened them, that with His Light they might see their evil deeds, be saved from their sins by Him, and might come to know Him to be their teacher. But if they would not receive Christ, and own Him, it was told them that this Light which came from Him would be their condemnation. We travelled from this town to Leith, warning and exhorting people, as we went, to turn to the Lord. At Leith the innkeeper told me that the Council had granted warrants to apprehend me, because I was not gone out of the nation after the seven days were expired that they had ordered me to depart in. Several friendly people also came and told me the same; to whom I said, “Why do ye tell me of their warrants against me? If there were a cart-load of them I would not heed them, for the Lord’s power is over them all.” I went from Leith to Edinburgh again, where they said the warrants from the Council were out against me. I went to the inn where I had lodged before, and no man offered to meddle with me. After I had visited Friends in the city, I desired those that travelled with me to get ready their horses in the morning, and we rode out of town together. There were with me at that time Thomas Rawlinson, Alexander Parker, and Robert Widders. When we were out of town they asked me whither I would go. I told them it was upon me from the Lord to go back again to Johnstons (the town out of which we had been lately thrust), to set the power of God and His Truth over them also. Alexander Parker said he would go along with me; and I wished the other two to stay at a town about three miles from Edinburgh till we returned.

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Then Alexander and I got over the water, about three miles across, and rode through the country; but in the afternoon, his horse being weak and not able to hold up with mine, I rode on ahead and got into Johnstons just as they were drawing up the bridges, the officers and soldiers never questioning me. I rode up the street to Captain Davenport’s house, from which we had been banished. There were many officers with him; and when I came amongst them they lifted up their hands, wondering that I should come again. But I told them the Lord God had sent me amongst them again; so they went their way. The Baptists sent me a letter, by way of challenge, to discourse with me next day. I sent them word that I would meet them at such a house, about half a mile out of the town, at such an hour. For I considered that if I should stay in town to discourse with them they might, under pretence of discoursing with me, raise men to put me out of the town again, as they had done before. At the time appointed I went to the place, Captain Davenport and his son accompanying me. There I stayed some hours, but not one of them came. While I stayed there waiting for them, I saw Alexander Parker coming. Not being able to reach the town, he had lain out the night before; and I was exceedingly glad that we were met again. This Captain Davenport was then loving to Friends; and afterwards, coming more into obedience to Truth, he was turned out of his place for not putting off his hat, and for saying Thou and Thee to them. When we had waited beyond reasonable ground to expect any of them coming, we departed; and Alexander Parker being moved to go again to the town, where we had the meeting at the market-cross, I passed alone to Lieutenant Foster’s quarters, where I found several officers that were convinced. Thence I went up to the town, where I had left the other two Friends, and we went back to Edinburgh together. When we were come to the city, I bade Robert Widders follow me; and in the dread and power of the Lord we came up to the two first sentries. The Lord’s power came so over them that we passed by them without any examination. Then we rode up the street to the market-place and by the main-guard, out at the gate by the third sentry, and so clear out into the suburbs; and there we came to an inn and put up our horses, it being Seventh-day. I saw and felt that we had ridden as it were against the cannon’s mouth or the sword’s point; but the Lord’s power and immediate hand carried us over the heads of them all. Next day I went to the meeting in the city, Friends having had notice that I would attend it. There came many officers and soldiers to it, and a glorious meeting it was; the everlasting power of God was set over the nation, and His Son reigned in His glorious power. All was quiet, and no man offered to meddle with me. When the meeting was ended, and I had visited Friends, I came out of the city to my inn again. The next day, being Second-day, we set forward towards the borders of England.

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As we travelled along the country I espied a steeple-house, and it struck at my life. I asked what steeple-house it was, and was told that it was Dunbar. When I came thither, and had put up at an inn, I walked to the steeple-house, having a Friend or two with me. When we came to the steeple-house yard, one of the chief men of the town was walking there. I asked one of the Friends that was with me to go to him and tell him that about the ninth hour next morning there would be a meeting there of the people of God called Quakers; of which we desired he would give notice to the people of the town. He sent me word that they were to have a lecture there by the ninth hour; but that we might have our meeting there by the eighth hour, if we would. We concluded to do so, and desired him to give notice of it. Accordingly, in the morning both poor and rich came; and there being a captain of horse quartered in the town, he and his troopers came also, so that we had a large concourse; and a glorious meeting it was, the Lord’s power being over all. After some time the priest came, and went into the steeple-house; but we being in the yard, most of the people stayed with us. Friends were so full and their voices so high in the power of God, that the priest could do little in the house, but quickly came out again, stood awhile, and then went his way. I opened to the people where they might find Christ Jesus, and turned them to the Light with which He had enlightened them, that in the Light they might see Christ who died for them, turn to Him, and know him to be their Saviour and Teacher. I let them see that the teachers they had hitherto followed were hirelings, who made the gospel chargeable; showed them the wrong ways they had walked in the night of apostasy; directed them to Christ, the new and living way to God, and manifested unto them how they had lost the religion and worship which Christ set up in spirit and truth, and had hitherto been in the religions and worships of men’s making and setting up. After I had turned the people to the Spirit of God which led the holy men of God to give forth the Scriptures, and showed them that they must also come to receive and be led by the same Spirit in themselves (a measure of which was given unto every one of them) if ever they would come to know God and Christ and the Scriptures aright, perceiving the other Friends to be full of power and the Word of the Lord, I stepped down, giving way for them to declare what they had from the Lord to the people. Towards the latter end of the meeting some professors began to jangle, whereupon I stood up again, and answered their questions, so that they seemed to be satisfied, and our meeting ended in the Lord’s power quiet and peaceable. This was the last meeting I had in Scotland; the Truth and the power of God was set over that nation and many, by the power and Spirit of God, were turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, their Saviour and Teacher, whose blood was shed for them; and there is since a great increase and great there will be in Scotland. For when first I set my horse’s feet upon Scottish ground I felt the Seed of God to sparkle about me, like innumerable sparks of fire.

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Not but that there is abundance of the thick, cloddy earth of hypocrisy and falseness above, and a briery, brambly nature, which is to be burnt up with God’s Word, and ploughed up with His spiritual plough, before God’s Seed brings forth heavenly and spiritual fruit to His glory. But the husbandman is to wait in patience.

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December 1, Tuesday (Old Style): John Dunbar was born to the wife of Robert Dunbar of Hingham MA. (There were perhaps other children of this union. Would Peter Dunbar, born September 8, 1668, have been one of them?) DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1668

September 6, Sunday (Old Style): Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-grandfather Peter Dunbar was born in Hingham MA, to Robert Dunbar and Rose ——— Dunbar.He would marry on March 25, 1691 with Sarah Thaxter, DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES

daughter of Samuel Thaxter and Abigail Church Thaxter. She had been born in Hingham on November 16, 1668. In 1699 Peter was one of the selectmen of Hingham. Peter probably removed from Hingham with his family, as his name does not appear upon the tax-lists of the town after 1707 and he died on April 23, 1719 in Bridgewater MA. The couple had seven children: • Abigail, born on December 4, 1691 at Hingham. • Sarah, born at Wry on June 26, 1693 • James, born on November 15, 169t at Hingham. • Lear, born on May 30, 1697 at Hingham, died September 19, 1699 • Elisica, born on October 21, 1699 at Hingham. • Peter, born on November 16, 1701 at Hingham. • Samuel Dunbar, born on May 11, 1704 at Hingham, graduated at Harvard College in 1723, and settled in the ministry at Stoughton, Massachusetts. In 1748 he preached the annual election sermon before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, which was printed. He died June 15, 1783, at the age of 79. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1691

March 25, Wednesday (New Year’s Day, Old Style): In Hingham MA, Thoreau’s great-great-grandparents Peter Dunbar and Sarah Thaxter Cushing, daughter of John Cushing, were wed. Their union would produce Thoreau’s great-grandfather Elisha Dunbar, and other children. James Savage’s genealogy volumes state that “Eight of this name had been graduated at Harvard College and four at other New England colleges of whom the Reverend Samuel Dunbar, Harvard College 1723, and others may be descended. But of this family I find very little to be told.” DUNBAR FAMILY

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1693

September 19, Tuesday (Old Style): Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandfather Robert Dunbar died in Hingham MA. He was survived by Rose ——— Dunbar, Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandmother, who would not die, there in Hingham, until November 1700.9

HENRY’S RELATIVES

9. We know that this Robert Dunbar who had spent his adult years in Hingham in the American colony had come from Scotland but we don’t know who his parents were. Many have conflated Ninian Dunbar’s son Robert with this Robert Dunbar of Hingham but they must have been two different persons because the Robert in Hingham MA was raising a family there while the Robert who was Ninian’s son was inheriting Ninian’s title — and serving in the House of Lords. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1694

Sir Alexander of Westfield, John Dunbar the Earl of Moray’s son by his 2d marriage, was made the 1st Baron of Mochrum, ancestor to the hereditary Sheriffs of Moray. The Dunbar clan would prosper in Moray despite a feud they would have with the Innes clan, and a number of sub-clans would branch off from them: the Baronets of Durn, of Northfield and of Hempriggs in Caithness. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1700

November 10, Sunday (Old Style): In Hingham, Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-grandmother Rose Dunbar died.

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1704

May 11, Thursday (Old Style): Samuel Dunbar was born the son of Peter Dunbar and Sarah Thaxter Cushing Dunbar of Hingham. He would graduate at Harvard College in 1723, and settle in the ministry at Stoughton. He would marry for the 2nd time, to Mary Hayward on February 11, 1745, while she was already pregnant with Thoreau’s grandfather Asa Dunbar. He would die on June 15, 1783, at the age of 79 years. DUNBAR FAMILY

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1719

April 23, Thursday (Old Style): Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-grandfather Peter Dunbar died in Bridgewater MA. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1720

The house in which Cynthia Dunbar (Thoreau) would grow up and in which she would in 1817 give birth to her son David Henry would be constructed on the Virginia Road near Concord at some date between this year and 1740. The house would be constructed on the portion of the Sergeant Thomas Wheeler (1625-1704) farm that had been inherited by his son John Wheeler (1655-1736). In front of the house, on the far side of the Virginia road, ran Elm Brook, which is a source for the Shawsheen River. In 1755 the heirs of John Wheeler would sell this farm to Deacon Samuel Minot, their cousin who was living near Meriam’s Corner in Concord, and then it would pass “for love and affection” from Samuel to his son Jonas. When Captain Jonas Minott would die in 1813 this house and grounds would be involved in the “widow’s thirds” of his estate which would remain with his wife Mary Jones Dunbar Minot, who when she married him had already several children by her previous marriage to the Reverend Asa Dunbar. Henry Thoreau would have this to say to his Journal on May 26, 1857 in regard to his mother’s childhood in the Virginia Road home:

My mother was telling me to-night of the sounds which she used to hear summer nights when she was young and lived on Virginia Road. The lowing of cows or cackling of geese or the beating of a distant drum [this is a reference to the drumming of the male Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus in the woods] as far off CURRENT YOUTUBE VIDEO as Hildreth’s, but above all Joe Meriam whistling to his team, for he was an admirable whistler. She says she used to get up at midnight and go and sit on the doorstep when all in the house was asleep and she could hear nothing in the world but the ticking of the clock in the house behind her.

(Of course, nowadays one would be more likely to hear the roar of a military jet taking off or landing from nearby Hanscom Airfield. But back to our romantic story: This farmhouse and the 30 or so acres that remained with it would be sold at auction in Fall 1818. Eventually it would fall to the ownership of Colburn Hadlock, who would keep pigs, tipping there the garbage from his Middlesex House in Concord. Consequently the pigfield near the house would acquire so much shattered hotel refuse that Henry would christen it “Crockery Field.” In Winter 1878 the house would be placed on runners and moved down the road a bit, so there is now a newer farmhouse standing on its sacred original location. THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1745

February 11, Monday (1744, Old Style): Mary Hayward and Samuel Dunbar were wed. She was already carrying Henry Thoreau’s grandfather Asa Dunbar. MARY HAYWARD DUNBAR DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES

May 26, Sunday (Old Style): Henry David Thoreau’s maternal grandfather Asa Dunbar was born in Bridgewater MA. DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1748

June 6, Monday (Old Style): In Boston, the Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached the annual Election Sermon before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, about how it was that “True Faith Makes the Best Soldiers,” for the benefit of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company on their anniversary meeting for the election of officers. This sermon would be printed for D. Henchman in Cornhill as TRUE FAITH MAKES THE BEST SOLDIERS : A SERMON PREACH’D BEFORE THE ANCIENT AND HONOURABLE ARTILLERY-COMPANY, ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING FOR THE ELECTION OF OFFICERS, JUNE 6TH. 1748. DUNBAR FAMILY

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

June 11, Saturday (Old Style): Mary Jones was born. She would turn out to be the solitary girl among the fifteen offspring of Colonel Elisha Jones and Mary Allen Jones of Weston MA. DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES

November 6, Sunday (Old Style): The Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached about “Brotherly Love the Duty and Mark of Christians” after the sitting of a council in Medford MA. This sermon would be printed in the following year as BROTHERLY LOVE, THE DUTY AND MARK OF CHRISTIANS : A SERMON PREACHED AT MEDFIELD, NOVEMBER THE 6TH. 1748. BEING THE LORD’S-DAY NEXT FOLLOWING THE SITTING OF AN ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL THERE, TO COMPOSE SOME UNHAPPY DIFFERENCES THAT HAD ARISEN, AND WERE SUBSISTING AMONG THEM. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1749

February 5, Sunday (1748, Old Style): At Stoughton after the premature deaths of several young persons, the Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached about “Man like Grass, Weak and Withering.” This sermon would be printed by J. Green as MAN, LIKE GRASS, WEAK AND WITHERING : A SERMON PREACH’D IN THE FIRST PARISH OF STOUGHTON, UPON THE MELANCHOLY OCCASION OF THE PREMATURE DEATHS OF SEVERAL YOUNG PERSONS THERE ; FEBRUARY 5TH. 1748-9. DUNBAR FAMILY

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Dunbars HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1751

May 9, Thursday (Old Style): The Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached at Thursday Lecture in Boston about “Righteousness by the Law, Subversive of Christianity.” This sermon would be printed and sold in Boston by S. Kneeland in Queen-Street. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1753

December 13, Thursday: This was a Fast Day or Day of Humiliation in Braintree, and prayer for divine direction in the choice of a new minister. The Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached on “The Duty of Ministers to Testify the Gospel of the Grace of God.” This sermon would be printed during the following year as THE DUTY OF MINISTERS, TO TESTIFY THE GOSPEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD : A SERMON PREACHED TO THE FIRST PARISH IN BRAINTREE, DECEMBER 13. 1753. BEING A DAY SET A-PART BY THEM FOR SOLEMN HUMILIATION AND PRAYER FOR DIVINE DIRECTION IN THEIR CHOICE OF A MINISTER. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1755

September 8, Monday: The series of skirmishes and engagements known collectively as the Battle of Lake George ended in the first significant win against the French forces by British provincials. Dieskau with a force of 1,200 native Americans and Canadians defeated 1,000 Provincials under Colonel Ephraim Williams, who was killed, while his faithful ally, Hendrick, the Mohawk sachem, was mortally wounded. Later, Dieskau himself would be wounded, defeated, and taken prisoner by the Provincials under Lyman, the successor to the wounded Sir William Johnson. Johnson would waste the remainder of the fighting season building Fort William Henry, which would amount merely to a pile of wooden barracks.

The Reverend Samuel Dunbar served as chaplain for the British forces who engaged in this expedition into the interior of the continent against the French. Paul Revere functioned as a 2d Lieutenant of the artillery convoy. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS December 1755: Philadelphia outstripped Boston in gross population.

Having accompanied the British expedition against the French at Crown Point Fort in New York as chaplain, the Reverend Samuel Dunbar returning to his church duties in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1759

April 23, Monday: Elijah Dunbar was born to Henry David Thoreau’s great-grandfather the Reverend Samuel Dunbar and Mary Snow Dunbar in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He would therefore be a nephew to Henry’s maternal grandfather, the Reverend Asa Dunbar.

During this year of little Elijah Dunbar’s birth, the Privy Council of Scotland would be recognizing the Dunbars as a clan. The arms of Clan Dunbar would be established as “Gules, a lion rampant Argent, armed and langued Azure, within a bordure of the Second charged with eight roses of the First, barbed and seeded Vert.” Its badge would be established as “A horse’s head Argent, bridled and reined Gules.” Its flower would be the rose, and it would be authorized its own tartan: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS The motto of the senior Mochrum branch of Clan Dunbar in Galloway, Sub Spe or “Under Hope,” attests to its desire to reattain the glory possessed by this family prior to its fall from grace during the reign of King James I of England (who in 1457 had for court intrigue deprived the head of the extended family, George, 11th Earl of Dunbar, of title, land, and possessions).

HENRY’S RELATIVES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1760

May 28, Wednesday: The Reverend Samuel Dunbar was chosen to present the Election Sermon before Governor Thomas Pownall, the lieutenant governor, the council, and the house of representatives of Massachusetts, on “The Presence of God with his People, Their Only Safety and Happiness,” using as his guide 2 CHRONICLES XV:1-2. This sermon would be printed in Boston as THE PRESENCE OF GOD WITH HIS PEOPLE, THEIR ONLY SAFETY AND HAPPINESS : A DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT BOSTON, IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOUR, THOMAS POWNALL, ESQ ; HIS HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOUR, THE HONOURABLE HIS MAJESTY’S COUNCIL, AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, OF THE PROVINCE OF THE MASSACHUSETTS-BAY IN NEW-ENGLAND ; MAY 28. 1760. THE DAY FOR THE ELECTION OF HIS MAJESTY’S COUNCIL, FOR THE PROVINCE. : THE PARAGRAPH AND ADDRESSES WITHIN SUCH MARKS WERE FOR BREVITY OMITTED IN 10 PREACHING. DUNBAR FAMILY

THE SCARLET LETTER: The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. It would probably be on the fourth day from the present. “This is most fortunate!” he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate we hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless –to hold nothing back from the reader– it was because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election Sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable epoch in the life of a New England Clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career. “At least, they shall say of me,” thought this exemplary man, “that I leave no public duty unperformed or ill-performed!” Sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister’s should be so miserably deceived! We have had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease that had long since begun to eat into the real substance of his character. No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. — 2 CHRON. XV. 1, 2. The occasion of this divine message to King Asa, and his army, was the compleat victory, which, thro’ help of God, and in answer to humble, believing prayer, they had very lately obtained over the huge and formidable army of Aethiopians, who had invaded their territories. Asa, as a wise and martial prince, led forth his army to put a stop to their progress, and set the battle in array: and, as a godly and religious prince, sought to God for

10. From the period when the Bay colony had been in effect a theocracy, the Election Sermon preached annually in late May after the election of public officials served as a sort of consecration of them to their duties, and of the general public to acceptance of their authority and mandate. The brackets in this sermon indicate text that was omitted in delivery. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS help and success. He led them into the field of battle to fight; before the battle, he led them to the throne of grace to pray, to obtain mercy, and find grace to help them, in this time of need and danger. He lift up a cry to God, e’re he gave the shout for the battle: That battle, that work is begun well, and like to succeed well, which is prefaced with holy, humble prayer. Asa cried unto the Lord his God: It was a cry of faith, rather than of fear. His prayer was short, but fervent; a prayer of faith, effectual and prevalent: it entred into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, found a gracious acceptance, and obtained divine help. God fought for them; and by them; gave their enemies a total overthrow. Thro’ faith and prayer, out of weakness, they were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and put to flight this vast army of aliens. Something similar have been the exercise, the practice, and the experience of the people of God in these British American provinces and colonies. Envious and ambitious enemies made encroachments upon our king’s territories, and erected several strong forts in them, to enable them to keep what they had got, and to win more. To oppose their further progress, and to drive them off from their unjust possessions, we mustered, and sent forth our forces; and our gracious sovereign, pitying us, sent brave troops to assist us; but we, not trusting to an arm of flesh, not to our numbers nor strength, not to our sword nor bow, like godly Asa, cried to the Lord our God; we fasted and wept, and made supplication to him; and, blessed be God, he turned not away our prayer nor his mercy from us; but has maintained our right, and given us a series of signal successes. King Asa, and his victorious army were now returning in triumph, from the field of battle, to Jerusalem, laden and enrich’d with the spoils of their enemies: doubtless greatly affected with the goodness of God, for the victory they had won: their tho’ts might be much employed as to the advantages, they should make of it, to the kingdom. Perhaps they might also be too much disposed to applaud themselves and one another, for their skill, and bravery, and success, and so take to themselves that glory, which was due to God: however these things were, God sent a prophet to meet them, and to deliver them a message from him. The manner of the prophet’s address was plain, and earnest, and authoritative: he used no pompous titles of honour, no fulsome compliments, no ceremonious congratulations, nor flattering applauses. He came upon a more important errand, and with a holy zeal and vehemency delivered it: nor did he in a mean servile manner, beg leave to speak, or savour to be heard: but, coming in the name of God, and with a message from him, he demanded their reverent attention: Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. When God speaks by the mouth of a prophet, it becomes the greatest men, the highest in dignity and power, to attend with the deepest humility and reverence, to hear what God the Lord has to say unto them: considering that, how high soever they are above other men, they are infinitely more beneath the most high God: nor should they take it in disdain, if God’s prophet, at such a time, give them not those honorary titles, which other men do. The message was partly monitory to them of their duty and interest: The Lord is with you, while ye are with him, and if ye seek him, he will be found of you: and partly minatory; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you: and partly memorative, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS to call afresh to their minds, that, before the battle, they were with God, in humble fervent prayer, and in the battle God was with them by his providence and power: before the battle they sought God, in the battle God was a present help: they prayed, God heard; they believed, and were established, were prospered: the victory they had gained, was owing more to God’s presence and blessing, than to their prowess and swords. From the experience they had had of God’s being with them, in the way of mercy and help, while they were with him, in the way of duty and trust, he shewed them what their duty and interest still were, even still to be with God, and he will still be with them. Their enemies were worsted, either fled or destroyed: there was no more war in the land: yet still they needed the divine presence and blessing, to direct their national affairs, and to prosper their public concerns: he let them know, that the continuance of God’s gracious presence with them, depended upon their dutiful presence with him: and assured them from God, that so long as they should be with God, God would be with them; but withal assured them, that if they forsook God, God would in like manner, forsake them. As they behaved towards God, in respect of duty and obedience, God would deal with them, in respect of the ways of providence. This divine message, I humbly conceive, is seasonable, and instructive to us, in our circumstances, as it was to them, in their’s. The experience, which we, the Lord’s people, in this land, have had, of the happiness of engaging and enjoying the presence of God with our armies, should make us careful not to forfeit it by any sinful departure from God; and conscientious in our abiding with God, that he may still abide with us. Still we have need of the divine presence and help: we have not yet put off the harness, nor has our land rest from war. Again our troops are gone forth, and we may expect to hear of garments roll’d in blood. The presence of God is as necessary for the success of our arms this year, as it was the last: and if God go forth with our armies, they will be prospered. As to the expert, the indefatigable, the magnanimous general, who led on his valiant army to battle last year; and that under the greatest disadvantages, and with the utmost difficulty and hazzard, but with an invincible resolution and courage, and a superior conduct, against the vastly greater number of his enemies; and who quickly scattered destruction among them, put them to the rout, and chased them before him: this super-eminent general, the glorious Wolfe, can be with us no more; he greatly fell in the last and conquering battle, and died in the bed of honour, fighting like an hero, in the service of his king, and in the defence of his subjects. But tho’ Wolfe, the dear, the brave, the bold, leader of his troops, can no more stand in the front of the battle, nor give his orders, nor by his words and example, fire their spirits, and make them undaunted, amidst the terrors and tumults of the fight; yet God lives, and still we may have his favourable presence; this is infinitely more, infinitely better: this made our slain general, such an every way accomplished one: this can raise up, and give us other generals, of equal skill and conduct, of equal zeal and fidelity, of equal fortitude and success. And if God be with our troops, we may hope he will: yea, blessed be God, he has: tho’ one is taken, another is left: a general who enjoyed the presence HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS of God with him, in the reduction of Louisbourg, the pride and trust of our enemies, a general, whose very name struck such terror into them, the last year, that they quickly abandoned their strong forts, at his approach, and betook themselves to inglorious flight — Amherst, the wary, the valiant, the victorious, is still left unto us. The presence of God is equally necessary and beneficial, for the governour, as the general; for the court, as the camp; for the field of husbandry, as the field of battle; in peace, as in war; and for the wise and successful management of affairs at home, as abroad: and our enjoyment of it turns upon our being with God. There are two heads of discourse before me; viz. 1. That the presence of God with his people, is their only safety and happiness. 2. That their enjoying the presence of God with them, depends upon their being with God. I. The presence of God with his People, is their only safety and happiness. The presence of God may be considered, as his natural and essential presence: this is general and universal, absolutely necessary for upholding in being, all creatures, in all worlds. In respect of this, God is the God of all the earth, and has the absolute ordering and disposing of all things, in the kingdoms of men, according to his own will, with sovereign dominion, and irresistible power. Or, as his glorious, and majestick presence, which is peculiar to the heavenly world: there God dwells in the habitation of his holiness, and sits upon the throne of his glory: angels standing in his presence, & doing homage: or, as his judicial, vindictive presence, by which the damned in hell are punished with everlasting destruction, from the glory of his power — or, as his spiritual, gracious presence: which is peculiar to his church and saints in this world: this accomplishes for them, the everlasting purposes of his grace and mercy in Jesus Christ, and blesses them with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly things in him — or, as his special providential presence, which also is peculiar to his professing people: in respect of this, he is with them, sometimes in judicial dispensations, correcting them for, and recovering them from their degeneracies from him, and the ways of holiness: and sometimes in merciful dispensations, prospering them in their public concerns, and giving them all outward blessings richly to enjoy: health in their habitations, plenty in their substance, peace in their borders; and in case of war, success to their arms. This favourable providential presence of God with his people, considered as a people, is that presence of God, which the text more especially, if not only, relates to. This God vouchsafes to them, for the sake of Christ, the great mediator, thro’ whom he comes nigh to them, and they are made nigh to him. The safety and peace, the prosperity and happiness of God’s people, depends wholly upon this presence of God with them. This performs many great and distinguishing acts of kindness and mercy for them: for where God is thus with his people, he is for them, espouses their cause, consults their welfare, and promotes their happiness. His right hand, and his arm, and the light of his countenance, do great things for them, because he has a favour to them. This presence of God with his people preserves them in their greatest sufferings & dangers: when like a bush on fire, flames HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS threaten them with immediate destruction, they are not consumed: but according to the greatness of God’s power and pity, he preserves them, when to themselves they seem appointed to perish. By this, the three Jewish worthies were preserved, in the midst of the burning fiery furnace; and Daniel in the lions den; in the mount the Lord is seen. This delivers them, in their lowest and most desperate circumstances. When they are surrounded with difficulties and dangers, and reduced to the greatest streights: when they have neither wisdom to contrive, nor power to effect, any way of escape, but, as to any visible means, all hope of being saved is gone; now is God’s times to work: Now will I arise, saith the Lord, and set them in safety. Providence wonderfully steps in, and opens a door of hope and help to them. So it did for Israel in delivering them from Egyptian bondage: then God went forth for the salvation of his people: yea, he rode upon his horses and chariots of salvation, made speed to help and save them. Miraculous appearances and operations of providence, for the deliverance of God’s oppressed, endangered people, may not now be expected; yet God has very strange and unthought of ways, to accomplish deliverance for them: as we see, in the deliverance of God’s people, from their Babylonish captivity, and also in the days of Esther. This lays restraint upon their envious and malicious enemies: sometimes upon their spirits; tho’ they envy them their enjoyments, and would fain deprive them of them, they cannot find an heart to do it. Thus tho’ the enemies of Israel coveted the good land, God had given them, yet when all the males went up to the feast of the Lord, to Jerusalem, and left their borders exposed to their incursions and depredations, God put such a restraint upon their spirits, that no man then desired their land. When a man’s, when a people’s, ways please the Lord, he maketh even their enemies to be at peace with them. Sometimes upon their tongues; that not so much as a dog shall move his tongue against them: as Balaam, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, tho’ hired with great rewards, could not curse Israel — and sometimes upon their hands; tho’ they seemingly have them in their power, and are provoked enough to destroy them, and have resolved to do it, yet their hands are, as it were, bound; they cannot execute their bloody purposes. So, when the sons of Jacob, treacherously and cruelly murdered the Shechemites, the terror of God was upon the cities round about, that they should not pursue after them, nor avenge themselves upon them. This defeats the mischievous plots and devices of their enemies against them. When their enemies conspire their ruin, and dig deep to hide their counsels; and when they imagine, they have brought their matters to bear, and are confident of their success, providence lays rubs in their way, and frustrates their machinations: their deep-lay’d plots, and long laboured schemes prove abortive: and God’s people escape, as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. Thus Haman’s plot for the destruction of God’s people, ended in disappointment: and so did the horrible, the hellish powder-plot in the English nation, intended to blow up at once, and in a moment, the king and Parliament: when it was ripened, and just upon the point of execution, it was strangely discovered, and timously prevented. Yea, Providence often brings that mischief, upon the enemies of God’s people, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS which they devised and intended against them: they are snared in the work of their own hands, and their designed mischief returns upon their own heads. So Haman handfell’d the gallows, he had prepared for Mordecai. This supplies them, with the comforts of life, so that they want no good thing. This gives them rain in due season and measure: makes their fields, such as the Lord has blessed, to yield their fruits in plenty; so that their barns are filled with substance, their presses burst out with new wine, and their garners are full, affording all manner of store; they have plenty, variety, dainties. If at any time they seem to be cut short, and fear want of bread, and cleanness of teeth, the good providence of God finds out ways for their supply, and prevents them with the blessings of goodness. It was a wonderful work of God, for Israel in the wilderness, a land not sown, that for forty years together, they had supplies brought them, from day to day. This directs them in all their darkness, and points out to them, the path of duty, the way of safety. When in some critical conjunctures, they are wholly at a loss, and, like Jehoshaphat, know not what to do; when they are perplexed in their minds, and hem’d in on every side with difficulties and perils, and can see no way to surmount, or escape them, providence, by some unexpected turns, opens a new scene, and shews them plainly the way, wherein they should go. God often gives his people direction, as to their present duty and safety, by an uncommon coincidence of things in providence; so that whoso is wise, and observes them, may understand the loving-kindness of the Lord. So God guided his people in the wilderness, and led them in a right way, in all their removes. This protects them, from all enemies and dangers, and is as a wall of fire, round about them, to keep them from harm. When their enemies confederate against them, unite their counsels to deceive them, and their forces to destroy them, and thunder out their boasts and threats to terrify them; and when they themselves are sensible of their own inability to withstand, or defeat them, and, according to human view, must fall sacrifices to their rage and cruelty; then God repents him for his servants when he sees they have no power: then providence undertakes for them, interposes, and powerfully protects them: their enemies are scattered in the imagination of their hearts, and their hands are not able to execute their purposes and threats: So God defended Jerusalem from the numerous army, and proud threatnings of the Assyrian monarch. So God saved England in former days from the formidable Armada of the Spaniards, and the last year from the threatned, and perhaps really intended, invasion of the French: and but a few years ago, he saved New-England from the powerful armament of their French enemies, who came into these American seas. The ancient famous cloud, the symbol of God’s presence, served to Israel, for protection, as well as direction. God’s presence is to his people, a sun and a shield; a shield to defend them, as well as a sun to comfort and direct them. This gives them success, in all their affairs. Success doth not constantly follow the probability of second causes. The Race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Oft-times the best human counsels are turned into foolishness, the wisest measures are disconcerted, the greatest preparations brought to nothing, and the cunningest politicians befooled; while on the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS other hand, weak and contemptible means are prospered, and the most improbable, meet with the greatest success. This is entirely owing to the divine governing providence. But when God is present with his people, he orders all things well for them, and prospers all their lawful undertakings. The smiles of God upon them, make every thing flourishing — God’s presence makes their land healthful, their fields fruitful, their merchandize gainful, and their armies successful: as in this last instance, we see by the great victory Asa obtained over his enemies — and may see in the repeated victories of our English fleets and armies, over our French enemies — and in the admirable success of our arms, in this quarter of the world, by the reduction of so many of the strong and important fortresses of our enemies, and even of their capital city. This repairs the ruins, brought upon them, by the judgments of providence. When God’s professing people forsake him, apostatize from his worship, and live in a presumptuous disobedience to his laws, it is necessary, for the vindication of the righteousness and holiness and honour of the divine government, that God testify his displeasure against them, and punish them, with judicial dispensations. And when he doth this, he often breaks them with breach upon breach, till he brings them very low. But he means not to make a full end of them, but to renew them to repentance, and to recover them from their declensions. When therefore they repent, and turn to him that smites them, he becomes to them a repairer of the breaches, and a restorer of paths to dwell in: and builds them up, as he had pluckt them down. Thus did he to his ancient people: he raised up the tabernacle of David, that was fallen, and closed up the breaches thereof, and raised up the ruins thereof, and built them as in the days of old. So did he by the great city, London, when, an hundred years ago, great part of it was laid in rubbish by devouring flames — so did he by this great town, Boston, when, near forty nine years since, this part of it, and the meeting- house, which stood in this place, and the town-house, and many other buildings along this street, on both sides of it, were laid in ashes. God being graciously present with his people, the ruins in a few years were repaired, and that with great advantage and splendor — and so will he again the dreadful desolations, made in it by the late fire, if he be graciously present with them. This turns all the evils they meet with into real kindnesses to them. Providence has a vast reach, and by seemingly contrary methods, promotes the good of God’s people: and when they are ready to say, all these things are against us, they are meant for good, tend to it, and terminate in it. So the Lord being with Joseph, all the hard things he met with, were the direct way to his future preferment and greatness. So God sent some of his people into captivity, in the land of the Chaldeans, for their good. So the repeated disasters we met with, in the beginning of this war, have been over-ruled for our advantage. God brings his people low, in order to exalt them the higher. Finally, This favourable providential presence of God with his people, builds his house, and appoints the ordinances of his worship, among them. Where God is with his people, and walks among them, he sets his tabernacle among them, as he did among his people Israel. He institutes symbols of his gracious spiritual presence with them, to be means of keeping up a HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS spiritual communion with him, and of conveying spiritual blessings to them; that so the common blessings of providence may be sanctified to them, by the special blessings of grace. These are some of the special providential favours, which God bestows upon his people, according to their varied circumstances, when he is graciously present with them. Upon a review of them, who will not say with the renowned Jewish lawgiver, What nation is there so great, who has God so nigh unto them in all things that we call upon him for? Happy art thou, O Israel, who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and the sword of thine excellency? And with the devout king of Israel, Happy is that people, that is in such a case; yea happy is that people, whose God is the Lord. What wise people would not desire to be, and to continue, such a happy people? to know the means, and use them, to be such? This brings me to the second head of discourse, viz. [II.] That God’s people’s enjoyment of this favourable providential presence of God with them, depends upon their being with God. The text assures us, that this is the only way to this felicity: The Lord is with you, while ye are with him, and no longer; for if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. Their obediential presence with God is the only condition, the only qualification of God’s gracious providential presence with them. All men, even they, who know not God, and are without God in the world, are yet with God, i.e. in his presence, under his inspection, and the government of his providence. They are encompassed with the divine immensity, and in God they live, and move, and have their being. But as God’s presence with his people signifies something more, than his essential presence, and universal providence, even his voluntary, chosen, and gracious presence, so their presence with God, signifies something else, and something more, than this natural and necessary presence with him, even their voluntary, chosen, and dutiful presence. Their presence with God must correspond to his presence with them, be as a kind of counterpart to it; and answer to it, as the wax to the seal. As God’s being with his people is his being for them, taking care of them, and dispensing favours to them; so their being with God, is their being for God, owning his cause, pursuing his interest, doing his will, and advancing his glory. God’s gracious providential presence with them performs great acts of favour for them, and their obediential presence with God, lies in performing religious duties to him. It implies in it, their keeping covenant with God. Their covenant relation to God constitutes them his peculiar people: and brings them into a state of nearness to him; for they, that are strangers from the covenant, are afar off from God: and their keeping covenant with God, being stedfast in it, abstaining from all sins forbidden, and doing all required duties, believing all revealed truths, and walking in all the commandments & ordinances of the Lord; and in all designing his glory, is their being with God. So also is their eying God in all providential dispensations. When they look thro’ second causes, and above visible instruments, and see the sovereign providence of God in all events, and adore the divine wisdom & goodness, power and righteousness, truth and faithfulness, in them, and compose themselves to a behaviour, comporting with them, they are with God. When they express a HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS dutiful submission to, and a fiducial dependance upon God in all their wants, and fears, & dangers: when they maintain a prayerful frame of spirit, seeking of God the supply of their wants, direction in their streights, deliverance from their dangers, protection from their enemies, and other judgments, success in their enterprizes, and a blessing upon their labours: when they excite themselves to a thankful praising God for all his benefits: when they endeavour a wise and good improvement of all God’s dealings towards them: and when they conscienciously walk in obedience to his commands: then may they be said to be with God, and not to forsake him. God’s people being thus with him, God will be with them. Not as if their being with God merited his being with them. By no means: for after all, they are unprofitable servants: and there are so many sinful imperfections attending them, in their abiding with God, such as, distrust and impatience, carnal confidence and undue dependance upon themselves or others, or means, neglect of humble believing prayer, or of holy thankful praises, that God might justly withdraw from them, and deny them his gracious presence. But, these infirmities notwithstanding, his people may humbly hope for his presence & blessing; for God is not strict to mark iniquity, where he sees sincerity. This hope they may build upon the gracious promise of God: the text carries the emphasis of a promise in it: and God expresly promised his people, that if they would walk in his statutes, and keep his commandments, and do them, i.e. if they would be with him, he would walk among them, and be their God: i.e. would be graciously with them. This promise God has ever made good to his people: they ever found that, when they were with God in the way of duty, God was with them in the way of providential mercy: and God will not now suffer his faithfulness to fail. Besides, the great concernment of God’s glory secures his favourable presence with them, while they are with him. Should God forsake his people, while they keep near to him; should he deny them the blessings, and load them with the judgments, of providence, while they are faithful in his covenant, and stedfast, and unmoveable, and always abounding in works of obedience to him; the wicked world would take occasion to blaspheme his name, as well as insult his people. They would say, Where is now your God? and upbraid them with his want of love to them, or care of them, or power to help them. Therefore, for the glory of his great name, he will not forsake them, while they abide with him. God’s glory is his supreme end; and the advancement of this is the great design, he is carrying on in the world. What remains is an application; which I shall attempt, by way of address to several orders of men amongst us. My incapacity for, as well as my unacquaintedness with, polite, courtly address, and its unsuitableness to my function, and the sacred desk, will, I trust, obtain an easy pardon, for my plainness of speech; and the example of our prophet, I conceive, will justify me in it. As your Excellency is, as yet, in the first and chief seat of government over us, justice and decency require me, in the first place, to direct an address to you: an address of a minister of Jesus Christ, reminding of duty, and exciting to it. Sir, It was the providence of God, which advanced you to the exalted station, you are now in. God is the judge; he putteth HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS down one, and setteth up another; he removes one, and replaces another. You are indeed greatly indebted to the king, for his royal favour and commission, but more to God, for the king’s heart was in the hand of the Lord. God, by his special providence, was with you in your exaltation: and from the addresses of both houses of the last assembly, and from the addresses of the freeholders and merchants of this metropolis, in which they bear public, and most honourable, testimonies to your Excellency’s administration, in respect of the wisdom and integrity, the clemency and tenderness of it, and of your constant views to the public good, and the spirited and successful measures you have taken to promote it; and of your tender care of our trade; we gather, that God has been with you in your administration, as he was with young King Solomon, to give you a wise and understanding heart, to rule and judge his people: and from the favour you have found in the sight of the king, in your preferment to a more advantageous command, we see, that God is still with you. Oh, doth not this favourable providential presence of God, which you have so evidently enjoyed, lay you under the strongest obligations to be, and to abide with God, in all the duties of religion, and in all the important affairs of your government? Duty and gratitude to the king’s majesty, for his repeated royal favours to you, worldly policy, and self-interest, oblige you to be often with him, by your letters, to his great ministers, to know his royal pleasure, to receive his instructions and orders, and to acquaint him with the state and affairs of his subjects. Do not duty and gratitude to the most high God, for providential favours to you; and do not spiritual wisdom, & your best interest, equally, at least, oblige you to be with him, for the continuance, and increase of political and divine wisdom, for the right management in your high office, & great trust, and for procuring his blessing to your self, and your administration? Sir, you are equally God’s minister, as the king’s governour. Our gracious sovereign, like godly King Asa, is with God, as we gather from his royal pious proclamations: with God, in humble supplications, to implore his blessing & help: with God, in thankful praises, to give him the glory of his favours: and we see that God is with him, as he was with Asa, in the remarkable success, he hath given to his fleets and armies, and the great victories, which by them he has obtained over his proud enemies, in one part of the world and another. This pious example of the king, is worthy the closest imitation of his representative. Your relation to us, as our governour, will soon cease: but you will need the divine presence, for a worthy and successful conduct, in the government you are appointed to; especially as it is embarrass’d with peculiar difficulties and dangers from perfidious and bloody Indians. Would you have the gracious presence of God go along with you, and abide with you; you must then be with God. If you are with God, acknowledge your dependence upon him, put your trust in him, supplicate his direction and blessing, and design his glory: God will be with you, to support you under the public burdens, to guide you by his counsel, to make you faithful in your trust, to defend you from enemies, if any you have, to prosper your administration, to make you acceptable to the king, and to your people; to think upon you for good, and to reward HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS you for your faithful services to his people. God’s presence with you will add lustre to your dignity; this will command reverence to your person, and obedience to your government. And what is infinitely more and better, than even this gracious providential presence of God with you, if by faith and prayer, and a holy life, you are with God, God will vouchsafe to you, his gracious spiritual presence, and bless you with spiritual blessings: and when you die out of this world (for tho’ you are an earthly God, you must die like a man), he will, thro’ the merits of Christ, receive you into his immediate glorious presence in heaven, and bestow inconceivably higher honours on you there, than ever he did in this world: he will set you upon a more glorious throne, &crown you with a richer crown, than even your royal master himself is now possessed of. [But it is fit, and safe to be told the worst, as well as best: therefore permit me, sir, in patience, and without offence, to add, what our prophet said to a great king, his own king, and a godly king; if you forsake God, which God forbid, he will forsake you: if you neglect and reject him, he will do so by you; and make as light account of you, as you can of him. Yea, and as was threatned to a great prince, tho’ you were the signet upon his right hand, he would pluck you thence, and cast you off for ever; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it, and spake it to the chief ruler of his people; Them that honour me, I will honour: and they, that despise me, shall be lightly esteemed. Wherefore, let king David’s advice, or rather charge, to his royal son and successor, be acceptable to you, and his arguments, have their due weight: And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind; if thou seek him, he will be found of thee, but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.] Your removal, excellent sir, from this seat of government, will be in a short time: The ancient form of blessing was, The Lord be with thee. A greater blessing we cannot wish you, than that God’s presence may go with you, when he carries you hence. This blessing we wish you, this day, out of the house of the Lord. In the next place, I shall offer an address, to the honourable, his majesty’s council, and the House of Representatives; and that with a like plainness of speech. Sirs, God, in his providence, has devolved upon you a great share, as of the honours, so of the cares and burdens of the government: you are as the eyes and hands of this people, to see and to act for them. You are entrusted with our most valuable priviledges, civil and religious: and, according to your management of them, we are like to be a happy or miserable people. Very important therefore, is your trust and your work; and requires superior intellectual and moral endowments for the faithful discharge and performance of the same. Will you not then be with God, who saith, counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: with God, who giveth wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding. It was the wisdom, honour and safety of Judah, that Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints. It will be no less your’s, to be and to do so to. You are piously beginning the great affairs of the year with God, in the religious exercises of his house, into which you have called us. Your care must be to be with God in the court- house too; or your being with him here will be but base hypocritical flattery, and an affront to that God, who will not HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS be mocked. Would you be with God in the elections of the present day, you must, according to your best judgment, choose such as God will approve. As to us your subjects, you are at liberty to choose into the king’s council whom you please: not so as to God. He has given you the character of those, that shall rule his people, and a charge to make choice of such: you are therefore bound in conscience to God, as well as honour to the king, and fidelity to this people, to do your best to elect such; and to provide out of all the people, able men, men of sense and substance; such as fear God; men of virtue and piety; men of truth, hating coveteousness; men of fidelity, generosity, and a public spirit: for the God of Israel has said, and the rock of Israel spake; he that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. If, in the elections of this day, you have no regard to the intellectual powers, moral characters and qualifications of men: if from fear or favour, from party spirit or any sinister views, you knowingly make choice of those who want them; you will forsake God, and act without, or rather against, him; and give him just occasion to complain of you, as of his people of old; they have set up kings, but not by me, not by my direction and order, nor according to my will: they have made princes, and I knew it not: I approved it not. In this case, can you expect God’s gracious presence with you? and if you forsake God the first day, and in the chief business of the day; and which has such an interesting influence upon all the succeeding businesses of the year, will it not bode ill to you, and to your people? But we hope better things; and that, as you are, now, and here, beginning with God, you will abide with him thro’ the important elections of the day; and also thro’ all the future sessions of the year; and that in the great & weighty affairs, that come before you, you will seek to God for that knowledge, that will make you understanding in the times, and enable you to know the true interests of your people, and the best methods to promote them; and for that fidelity and resolution, that will embolden you to pursue them, and for the divine blessing to prosper them. Should you, from a vain conceit of your own wisdom and sufficiency, forsake God, and ask neither his counsel nor blessing; or do it only in a formal, customary, complimental manner; you may justly fear, that God will forsake you, turn you over into the hands of your own counsels, leave you to the darkness & lusts of your own minds, mingle a perverse spirit in the midst of you, suffer parties to be formed, dissentions to prevail, and passion, self-interest, and a party spirit, rather than reason, justice, and a public spirit, to influence and govern you. In this case, your counsels will be carried headlong; and, in all probability, be extreamly prejudicial, if not fatal, to the common-wealth. Sirs, God will be with you, in your assemblies, whether you be with him or no: judicially, if not graciously. He will be an inspecter, an observer, a judge. However unaccountable you may be to your people, you must give account to him. Bear it in mind then, and act under the solemn realizing thought of it, that God standeth in the congregation of the mighty: He judgeth among the Gods. Would it not be tho’t, without the limits of my present call, I would, in a few words, address the honourable the judges in our courts of judicature, and the honoured the justices in our towns HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS and counties. Sirs, The names, the estates, the liberties, and even the lives of the subjects, are deeply interested in your judgments: high is your office, awful is your work: and in some cases, attended with peculiar difficulties, perhaps temptations. You need not only the laws of the land for your directory, but wisdom, fidelity and courage, to make a right and just application of them. You are to hear the cause of your brethren, and to judge righteously, between every man and his brother; not to respect persons in judgment, but to hear the small as well as the great; and not be afraid of the faces of men; for the judgment is the Lord’s. You must take heed, therefore, what you do; for you judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore be you with God, and let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Put on righteousness, and let it cloath you, and your judgment will be as a robe, and a diadem: your greatest comfort, your brightest ornament. God will own and honour you; men will fear and reverence you. But if you forsake God in the judgment, and judge after the sight of your eyes, respect persons and not causes, receive bribes, use partiality, justify the wicked, and condemn the righteous, you will be an abomination to the Lord, and the abhorrence of his people. Remember, sirs, that tho’ now you sit upon the bench, you must one day stand at the bar. If you have been with God in the judgment, and studied to do justice, to discountenance vice, and to encourage vertue, you will be acquitted in the great audit day; and Christ, the judge, will confer inexpressible honour upon you; will take you to be assessors with him, and you shall judge the world, yea angels. But, if you have forsaken God, and been unjust judges, wo unto you, a more severe & tremendous sentence will be past upon you, than you ever past upon the most flagitious criminal. Now therefore, be instructed, ye judges of the earth, and serve the Lord with fear. The text leads me particularly to address the gentlemen of the military order and life: but, as they have willingly, and generously offered themselves, to the service, and defence of their country, and are gone to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord, against the mighty, and to jeopard their lives in the high places of the field, I forbear — only let our hearts be towards them, our good wishes follow them, and our fervent prayers be to God for them. My reverend fathers and brethren, will not, I trust, take it amiss, if, upon this occasion, one of the least, and most unworthy, of their order, presumes, by a word of address, to stir up their pure minds by way of remembrance; notwithstanding we expect a sermon to morrow: for even we have need of line upon line. My fathers and brethren, God, in his providence, has seperated us, from the congregation of his people, to come near to him, to stand before him, and to minister in the holy things of his house. To us are committed the oracles of God, the ministry of the word, the administration of the sacraments, and the charge of precious souls: And who is sufficient for these things? Of all men in the world, we have need to be with God, and to give our selves to prayer, imploring his spirit, to give us a spiritual understanding in the mysteries of the gospel, & to lead us into all truth: his presence, to animate us in our holy work, and to carry us above all the discouragements we meet with, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS from the carnality and unbelief of our own hearts, from the temptations of satan, from the little visible success of our labours, from the unkindness of our people, and from the oppositions of an ungodly world: his help, to support us under our burdens, and to strengthen us to make full proof of our ministry: and his blessing upon our labours, that we may preach so, as to save our selves, and them that hear us. We had need be with God in our preaching, that we deliver to our people none other things than what we have received from the Lord, and plainly taught in his word; that we keep back nothing that is profitable, nor shun to declare the whole counsel of God: and that we do not offer to the Lord that which cost us nothing, nor utter rashly before him, the sudden, undigested conceptions of our minds. We should be with God in our lives, and like Noah that antediluvian preacher of righteousness, walk with God, and be exemplary in faith and purity, and all the vertues of a holy life; that all may take knowledge of us, that we have been, and are with God. If we are thus with God, we may hope, he will be graciously present with us, to assist, instruct, encourage, and succeed us, in our ministerial work. We have that gracious promise of our divine Master to rely upon, and plead, Lo, I am with you always: and when we have served our generation, according to his will, and are not suffered to continue by reason of death, he will take us into his immediate presence in glory; for he has said, Where I am, there also shall my servant be: and having, thro’ grace, been instrumental of turning many to righteousness, we shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever. But, if we forsake God, become strangers to prayer, and ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and the religion of the Bible: if we trust to the strength of our own reason, and the imaginary greatness of our learning; and preach for doctrines, the unscriptural conceits of our own brains, or the erroneous notions of others; if we corrupt the word of God, and preach another gospel; if we neglect or mislead the souls committed to our charge; and, by the badness of our lives, contradict and frustrate the end of our ministry, we have reason to fear, that God will forsake us utterly; and abandon us to the giddiness and wildness of our own fancies, to the blindness and pride of our own natural reason, to a reprobate mind, and to the delusions of satan: and that, having been wandring stars, the blackness of darkness for ever will be reserved for us; and that, in that outer darkness, we shall have our miserable portion, but just punishment, and be the subjects of a greater damnation. Finally, I would address a word to this whole people: Hear ye me, all Judah and Benjamin: hear this all ye people, and give ear all ye inhabitants of the land: and, if I might do it without presumption and offence, I would use the pathetic words of Moses; and set your hearts to all the words, which, from God’s word, I testify among you this day; for it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life. Your peace & safety, your prosperity and happiness, your life, your all turns upon it: The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; if ye seek him, he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you. If ye be with God, become a praying and religious people, acting up to your covenant relation and engagements to him, walking in all holy obedience to his laws, and attendance upon his worship and ordinances; God will be with you, and give you the tokens HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS of his gracious presence, in providential mercies. The name of your land will be Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there. God’s presence with you, will be your surest defence, your highest glory, your truest felicity. This will derive a blessing upon all your labours, husbandry, merchandize, fishery, & whatever you set your hands unto — and upon all your enjoyments. This will make your governour a Nehemiah, seeking your prosperity; this will give you wise & faithful rulers, skilful and upright judges, zealous and godly magistrates; and will make your officers peace, and your exactors righteousness: this will give you holy & orthodox ministers, pure and peaceable churches, learned & flourishing academies; and, in time of war, valiant soldiers and victorious armies. Yea, if you are indeed religiously with God, he will afford his gracious spiritual presence with his word and ordinances; this will make you a holy, as his providential presence will make you, a happy people. Then your righteousness will go forth as brightness, and your salvation, as a lamp that burneth: they’ll be conspicuous and comfortable. But if you forsake God, cast off your dependance upon him, and refuse subjection to him: if you apostatize from his truths and ways and worship; if you disregard his interest & glory, God will forsake you; you will become the people of his wrath, and may fear, he will write Lo-ammi upon you, disown you, reject you, break down the hedge he has set about you; and open a gap for ruinous judgments to rush in upon you; that as he has loaded you with benefits, he will heap mischiefs upon you. Wo unto you, if God depart from you; with him goes all good. Sinning Judah and Benjamin at length found it so; and so may you too. To prevent then the misery of a departed God, and to enjoy the blessedness of a graciously present God, Oh be ye with God! And, because this people have backslidden from God, with a grievous backsliding, are become loose in their principles, and vicious in their lives; a people laden with iniquity; Oh return to God, by a hearty repentance, and thorow reformation, and abide with him, in the ways of obedience, that God may abide with you, in the ways of mercy. Then his salvation will be nigh unto you, and glory will dwell in your land. To conclude. Let us all, let persons of every order and condition, realize it, that the gracious presence of God with us, is the one thing needful, the all-comprehending blessing: and, by a conscientious walking with God, let us engage it with us. The presence of God makes heaven itself such a holy and blessed place: the more of God’s presence we have with us, the more like heaven will it make our land, in point of true holiness and true happiness — let us then, with Israel, deprecate, God forbid, we should forsake the Lord: and with them deliberately resolve, Nay, but we will serve the Lord; and with Solomon, earnestly pray, The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; let him not leave us, nor forsake us. Amen: And let all the people say, Amen. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1763

April 20, Wednesday: The Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached at the ordination of the Reverend Ebenezer Grosvenor in Scituate in the Bay Colony, on “The Ministers of Christ Should Be Careful That They Do Not in Their Ministry Corrupt the Word of God.” This sermon would be printed in Boston as THE MINISTERS OF CHRIST SHOULD BE CAREFUL, THAT THEY DO NOT IN THEIR MINISTRY CORRUPT THE WORD OF GOD : A SERMON PREACH’D IN THE FIRST PARISH IN SCITUATE, APRIL 20. 1763. AT THE ORDINATION OF THE REVEREND MR. EBENEZER GROSVENOR, TO THE PASTORAL OFFICE. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1766

Fall: As “Senior Sophister,” during his senior year at Harvard College while Holyoke was president, Asa Dunbar headed a revolt against the bad food, especially the rancid butter,11 and against the chronic misuse of special privilege by privileged students — and was threatened with expulsion.

DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY

Asa then wrote up the incident in scriptural language as a burlesque narrative:

The Book of Asa the Scribe Chapter I. 1. There was a man of pontiquinum whose name was Asa: the same also, whenas he had none inheritance in pontiquinum, went down into Mistick to sojourn there. 2. Moreover Asa was a wise man, and skilled in all the learning of the harvardites. 3. And it came to pass, when the mistickites saw Asa, that he was a wise man and skilled in all the learning of the Harvardites, that they spake one to another, saying, 11. The rallying cry among the students was “Behold, our butter stinketh!” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS 4. Do not our children and our servants suffer for lack of instruction? and we ourselves have no time to instruct them, for the labour that is upon our hands. 5. And behold we have victuals and lodging, and mony in our purses, and our young men be very numerous. 6. Go to now therefore, let us entreat Asa, & give him mony, even sixty shekles of silver, & make Asa ruler of the pedagogue to instruct our sons & our servants. 7. And the mistickites did so, & entreated Asa, & offered him sixty shekles of silver, & Asa consented to their entreaties. 8. So Asa instructed the children & the servants of the mistickites, three months, for sixty shekles of silver. 9. And Asa lodged at the house of one Joseph a bricklayer, which standeth over against the pedagogue, as thou passest thro the gate, towards the north, by the house of Ebenezer the priest. 10. And it was so, that when Asa entered in thro. the door into the pedagogue, he uncovered his head & bowed himself unto the youngmen of the mistickites. 11. Then also the children and the servants of the mistickites, & all the young men rose up & bowed themselves unto Asa & did obeysance. Chapter 2. 1. Now it came to pass in process of time, when Asa went to execute his office in the pedagogue, that he bowed himself as heretofore, & all the young men rose up and bowed themselves & made obeysance. 2. But Andrew the son of Benjamin rose not up nor made obeysance, neither regarded he him at all. 3. Then Asa when he saw that Andrew rose not up neither regarded him at all, went unto his own place, & sat down & called Andrew unto him & spake, saying, 4. Wherefore do I behold this thing in thee? & why hast thou done thus? to set an evil example before the young men. 5. Now therefore I will punish thee with stripes that the young men may see & be afraid, lest peradventure they also be disobedient. 6. Then Andrew fell on his knees & wept bitterly, with many tears, & said unto Asa, forgive, O Sir, I pray thee, & let thine anger be turned away from me, & surely thy servant will do no more so foolishly. 7. Then Asa had compassion on Andrew, & raised him up, & spake to comfortably to him & forgave him, & laid no stripes upon him. 8. Moreover it came to pass after many days, when the fear of Asa had ceased to make Andrew afraid, that behold he again rose not up, nor made obeysance, neither regarded him at all. 9. Then the anger of Asa was kindled a second time against Andrew, more than at the first, & Asa reproved Andrew, saying, 10. Is not this the second time that thou hast delt thus impudently with me? And surely the first time I forgave thee, because of thy tears, & thy promises, & thine entreaties. 11. Now therefore why hast thou done thus impudently again, to set an evil example before the young men? 12. And Andrew was silent, neither opened he his mouth to answer any thing HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS to all the words which Asa had spoken unto him: for he stood guilty. 13. And when Asa saw that he answer’d not a word, neither humbled himself as at the first time, then was Asa exceeding wroth & his anger burned against Andrew. 14. Moreover Asa smote Andrew on his ear, with the palm of his hand, insomuch that he fell down at his feet, as one having no strength. 15. And when the children & the servants of the mistickites saw what was done, they were sore afraid; & all the young men did excedingly [sic] quake & tremble for fear of Asa, for his fear fell on them all. 16. Therefore none of the young men did after the example of Andrew, but rose up & bowed themselves, & made obeysance lest the wrath of Asa should fall on them as it had done on Andrew their brother, before their eyes.

September 23, Tuesday: At a meeting of all students at Harvard College, a vote was taken to “resent it in a proper manner” should Senior Sophister Asa Dunbar be expelled due to the student protest at conditions. Soon, by prior arrangement, the entire student body would get up and walk out during their mandatory chapel service. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1767

Asa Dunbar graduated from Harvard College and began to preach as a Congregational minister at Bedford, Massachusetts near Concord. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1769

The Reverend Asa Dunbar began to share the duties of the 1st church in Salem with the Reverend Thomas Barnard, Jr. at a “sallery” of £133 6s. 8d. per annum.12 DUNBAR FAMILY

12. “Half pay is better than no pay. Covetousness is Idolatry.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1772

October 22, Thursday: The Reverend Asa Dunbar got married with Mary Jones, a sister of Daniel Jones of Hinsdale, at about the same time as First Church in Salem was splitting over the issue of whether to elect him or the other minister, the Reverend Thomas Barnard, Jr., son of the previous minister. He took over as pastor of First Church while the remainder of the congregation went to a new “North Church” under Reverend Barnard.13 Asa and Mary would produce four children. DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY

The Reverend and Mistress Dunbar’s 1st child would cause a letter to its maternal grandfather, Colonel Elisha Jones: Dear Sir, I have ye happiness of informing you that Mrs. Dunbar is comfortably abed with a Daughter. She was delivered about three O’Clk this morning, after a moderate illness of thirty-six hours. Her circumstances seem very agreeable, & ye child is a perfect & promising child. We have already named her after both her grand-Mammas and her immediate mother, and we will endeavor that she shall not disgrace ye name wh. they have born with so much honor.

13. “I see by visiting [my parishioners in their homes] that my preaching does but little good.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1774

January: “A View of the Town of Boston with several Ships of War in the Harbour” was prepared by Paul Revere as the frontispiece for The Royal American Magazine, a Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement. Revere based this engraving on his earlier engraving depicting the landing of British troops in October 1768. This should be available as a 13” x 20 1/2” reproduction in black and white on cover stock paper in a heavy mailing tube, from Historic Urban Plans, Inc., Box 276, Ithaca NY 14851 (607 272-MAPS), for roughly $14.00 inclusive of postage. This was Revere’s Boston Harbor:

Colonel Elisha Jones, maternal grandmother Mistress Mary Jones Dunbar’s wealthy father, a landowner and slaveholder in Newton, Massachusetts and an active Tory with 14 Tory sons, persuaded the town of Weston, Massachusetts to refrain from the Committees of Correspondence, and the Continental Congress, which were the precursor bodies of revolution. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS It wasn’t all that unusual for Americans of this period to be in favor of peace and of the seeking of mutual accommodation with the mother country. For instance, the construction of the Quaker school at Nine Partners northeast of Poughkeepsie, New York was being delayed for five years, between 1775 and 1780, merely because the Quakers sensed this Revolutionary War a-coming and were resolved that they were not about to place themselves under any obligation by soliciting funds from persons who might not be able to maintain, in the face of such a popular cause, an attitude of Quaker pacifism.

I’ll task you to find these American pacifists in this fresco by Brumidi on a wall in our federal capitol:

Don’t think of these continental congresses as innocuous. For instance, the 1st Continental Congress would not merely deal with weighty issues of freedom, but also would ban horseracing, the theater, and gaudy attire. CONTINETAL CONGRESS

April 29, Friday: This day having been set apart as one of solemn humiliation by the church and congregation of Dorchester, the Reverend Samuel Dunbar preached on “The Duty of Christ’s Ministers to Be Spiritual Laborers.” This sermon would be printed in Boston as THE DUTY OF CHRIST’S MINISTERS TO BE SPIRITUAL LABOURERS ; AND THE DUTY OF CHRIST’S CHURCHES TO PRAY TO GOD FOR SUCH : EXHIBITED IN A SERMON, FROM MATTHEW IX. 38. PREACHED AT DORCHESTER, APRIL 29, 1774. A DAY SET APART BY THE CHURCH AND CONGREGATION THERE, FOR SOLEMN HUMILIATION AND SUPPLICATION, TO SEEK THE DIVINE DIRECTION AND BLESSING IN THE CHOICE AND SETTLEMENT OF A MINISTER AMONG THEM: [Seven lines of quotations]. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1775

Colonel Elisha Jones, a wealthy landowner and slaveholder of Weston, Massachusetts, was an active Tory with

14 sons and one daughter (Mary Jones –> Mary Jones Dunbar –> Mary Jones Dunbar Minot, Thoreau’s grandmother). DUNBAR FAMILY THOREAU WAS “CLEAR JONES” IN ONE RESPECT AT LEAST ...

After the Revolutionary War, 8 of these sons would be banished for loyalty to England, and the Jones estates in Weston would be confiscated. Two sons who were in the Concord lockup as Tories escaped with a variant of the old “file baked in the cake” trick. Later, Henry Thoreau would consider it worthy of note, that one of the prisoners who had been in the Concord lockup with his relatives was named Hicks.

The man named Hicks in the jailGO was T Opresumably MASTER the INDEX Doctor OFJonat WhanARFARE Hicks of Plymouth who had been traveling on the Polly with Doctor Josiah Jones of Hinsdale NH and who had been taken prisoner along with him by the captain, as men suspected of Tory sympathies, to be delivered to the Committee of Safety of Arundel ME.

[Arundel is now named Kennebunkport. This Hicks prisoner could not have been John Hicks of Rockaway LI, the father of Elias and of Elias’s five brothers Samuel, Jacob, John, Stephen, and Joseph, because that Hicks had become a convinced Friend, that is, a convert to Quakerism, a few years before the birth of Elias in 1748 and in 1774 he would have been 63. It could not have been any of Elias’s brothers, or the biographies of Elias would have noted this. During the Revolution, six Friends attempted to cross from the mainland to Paumanok HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS “Long Island” to attend Yearly Meeting and were intercepted by the British, but they were kept aboard one of

the prison hulks the British anchored off the Narrows and this was not until the late spring of 1777 whereas

what we are presently considering is the lockup in Concord MA circa 1775. When the British and their Hessian troops went through the port of New York for transportation at the end of the active fighting, 1,004 Quaker loyalists made an escape without their American property to the Maritime Provinces of Canada and among these 1,004 at least 6 families were named Hicks. As heads of families or as individual unattached males, there were John Hicks and Charles Hicks who were descendants of Elias Hicks’s great-grandfather Thomas Hicks, who was not a Quaker and in fact held the office of Sheriff which a Quaker cannot hold (these two emigrated to Annapolis County), and there were Oliver Hicks who emigrated to Digby, Sylvester Hicks who emigrated to Granville Township, Gilbert Hicks who emigrated to New Brunswick, and Samuel Hicks who emigrated to the Maritimes. Perhaps it was one of these men who was in the Concord lockup and participated with Thoreau’s two loyalist Jones ancestors in making their dramatic but nonviolent jailbreak, but there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason to suppose that this Hicks might have been directly related to the family of HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Friend Elias Hicks or even, were he related, that he might have been a member of the Religious Society of Friends imprisoned because of a refusal to participate in warfare. There is no more reason to speculate here, than there is to fancy a connection between the Quaker painter Edward Hicks who was limning so many Peaceable Kingdoms On God’s Sacred Mountain and the William Hicks who would daub the marchésa

Planning a Peaceable Kingdom on God’s Holy Mountain

d’Ossoli in Rome. There doesn’t seem to be anything to do with this mention in Thoreau’s journal, other than to use it as a demonstration that Thoreau was sensitive to the name Hicks, a fact for which no explanation has been offered other than his familiarity with the testimony of Friend Elias. The new stone Middlesex County jail in which Thoreau was to be kept overnight was not built until 1797, and had nothing whatever to do with the old wooden jail of Concord town, which had been nearly opposite the present library and near the old cemetery.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS July 20, Thursday: William Bartram crossed Pintlala Creek near the present-day town of Pintlala.

There had been a Colonial Fast declared for this day by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and the Reverend Asa Dunbar did or said something in Salem or Weston, Massachusetts that the revolutionaries found offensive. He was forced to issue an explanation that amounted to an apology:

Having been acquainted by the Gentlemen, the Committee of Correspondence in Weston, with some uneasiness arising in the minds of the people, from the conduct of myself and family upon Fast day, the 20th of last July; and having a desire to live in good fellowship with every friend of American liberty, I beg leave publicly to declare that the part I bore in those transactions that gave offence was dictated solely by the principles of religion and humanity, with no design of displeasing any one: and that I am sorry it was, in the eyes of one of my countrymen attended with any disgusting circumstances.... As it has been suspected that I despised the Day, and the authority that appointed it, I must, in justice to myself, and from the love of truth, affirm, that I very highly respect and revere that authority; and, were it not from the appearance of boasting, could add, that I believe no person observed it with greater sincerity than /s/ ASA DUNBAR. WESTON, September 8, 1775.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1776

January: During this month, Colonel Elisha Jones, Mistress Mary Jones Dunbar’s father, died and was buried in Boston.

THOREAU LIFESPANS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS July 12, Friday: On what would become Henry Thoreau’s birthday, one of Thoreau’s remote relatives, the inventor William Dunbar of Mississippi,14 recorded in his journal with a sense of hurt and amazement that there had been a slave rebellion on his plantation: “Judge my surprise ... Of what avail is kindness & good usage when rewarded by such ingratitude.” When he would manage to recover his runaways, he would have them lashed with a hundred strokes, five different times so that they would have a chance to survive for the next lashing, for a total of 500 blows each, “and to carry a chain & log fixt to the ancle.”

CLAN DUNBAR Toni Morrison has suggested that by disciplining black savagery in this extreme manner, what Dunbar was doing was demonstrating his white gentlemanliness: “[W]hatever his social status in London, in the New World he is a gentleman. More gentle, more man. The site of his transformation is within rawness: he is backgrounded by savagery.”15 DUNBAR FAMILY

Captain James Cook set sail in the Resolution from Plymouth on a 3d voyage to the southern oceans, to be joined later by the Discovery.

Five British ships proceeded up the Hudson River past the American shore batteries to anchor unmolested at Tarrytown. AMERICAN REVOLUTION

14. Named, presumably, in honor of the famous Scottish poet William Dunbar, he invented the screw press that made possible the square baling of cotton. READ DUNBAR’S POEMS 15. To at all grasp the force of Morrison’s argument here, you will need to make a careful study of her PLAYING IN THE DARK: WHITENESS AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION (NY: Vintage Books, 1992). This is on page 44. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS THE OLD DUNBAR PARSONAGE IN CANTON MA

ALMOST HARBORED A REFUGEE DURING THE REVOLUTION

Samuel Danforth, Esq., a loyalist and the descendant of the author of a treatise on the comet of 1664 that was described by John Josselyn, was Elijah Dunbar’s cousin. In early manhood Danforth was one of the proprietors of the 1st gristmill in Canton on the approximate location of the present Plymouth Rubber Co., left Canton around 1727 for greener fields and rose high in legal offices, eventually being appointed a mandamus councilor in Cambridge in 1774. He was a prominent Tory, a political opinion he finally relinquished, along with his office, which he was obliged to renounce publicly on the steps of the Court House in Cambridge, in the presence of a multitude assembled to witness his recantation. Henceforth he spoke of the British as “the enemy” and wrote a letter to his brother-in-law, the Rev. Samuel Dunbar, in 1777, asking for refuge for himself, his daughter, and cherished belongings, if the British invaded Boston. It seems strange from our modern point of view that Canton, less than 15 miles from Boston, would be considered far enough away for such a haven; once more we must imagine how difficult even a short journey could be over the poorly paved roads of the Revolutionary era. Excerpts from Mr. Danforth’s letter indicate the feeling of distance between Boston and Canton though of course the writer was then an old gentleman who would not be doing unnecessary traveling. He says in part: “Rev. Dear Sir, - Many years have elapsed since I had the pleasure of seeing and conversing with you, altho’ it not be long since I heard of your good state of health by my cousin Mr. Elijah Dunbar. I presume your visits to Boston are but rare, and more so to Cambridge, else I should have seen you —My advanced age has more lately prevented my riding out to visit my friends who live at any distance from me— “I condole with you on occasion of the perplexity and unhappiness of the present times; and when they will be better. God only knows. The present aspect of things, if reports can be depended on, seem to presage times near at hand more difficult and distressing. Under an appreciation that the Town of Boston may be invaded by the enemy, soldiers are ordered to be raised for its defense, and some of the inhabitants are sending some of their most valuable effects into the country; and I have thought it advisable to do the like with respect to some part of my goods, lest in case the town should be invaded, bombarded, and set on fire, I should lose the whole; and whereas I do not think of a more safe and secure place wherest to lodge them than at your house, I would request of you the favor to receive two or three trunks into your house, if it may be done without incommoding of you ... and if you should know of any one of your neighbors coming to Boston with cart, in whom we may confide for safe conveyance, that you would be so good as to desire him to call at my lodgings in Hanover Street-— “And as, in case Boston should be invaded, I purpose to move with my daughter into the country, I would gladly know whether in such case you could possibly accommodate me with one room in your house. If this meets, you will lay me under the greatest obligations to you, and I will make you all reasonable satisfaction therefore……” This letter shows some of the fear prevalent in Cambridge and Boston at the thought of a British invasion but Mr. Danforth never had to worry about becoming a refugee. Boston was not invaded at that time, so neither his person or his trunks were disturbed; instead a more relentless enemy seized him, for five months after the letter was written, he died at the ripe old age of 85. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1779

April 29, Thursday: The Reverend Asa Dunbar asked his Salem congregation to release him from churchly duties owing to ill health. He received from the church in settlement for his services a sum of paper money amounting to £700 (a sum which due to their generosity exceeded by some £50 the actual amount they owed him) and began to prepare himself, in the office of Joshua Atherton of Amherst MA, for the practice of the law. He became a Freemason.16 Such is the general state of my health that I judge it expedient for me to ask a dismission from your service in the Gospel ministry. This request I doubt not you will think to be reasonable, and I hope your compliance with it will be greatly to your own interest. DUNBAR FAMILY

16. In 1815, because of this, his widow Mary Jones Dunbar would be able to apply for a Masonic pension in her old age. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1780

February: Charles Jones Dunbar, Cynthia Dunbar’s only brother, was born in Weston during the severest winter of the 18th Century. (As Henry Thoreau commented in his journal, his uncle would die in the winter of another great snow — a life bounded by great snows.) DUNBAR FAMILY

There had been this series of heavy December snowstorms, and then there had followed a thawless January, coldest month in history. Except for the Great Road between Boston and Hartford, all highways were blocked for many weeks. All the shipping in all of New England’s harbors were bottled up tight for four to six weeks. In southern Connecticut, 42 inches of snow blanketed the fields.

September 9, 1850: … Charles grew up to be a remarkably eccentric man He was of large frame athletic and celebrated for his feats of strength. His lungs were proportionably strong– There was a man who heard him named once, and asked it was the same Charles Dunbar–whom he remembered when he was a little boy to have heard hail a vessel from the shore of maine as she was sailing by. He should never forget that man’s name. … CHARLES JONES DUNBAR

January 15, 1853: … Saw near Le Grosse’s the 12 ult a shrike. He told me about seeing Uncle Charles once come to Barrett’s mill with logs–leap over the yoke that drew them–and back again– It amused the boys. … CHARLES JONES DUNBAR

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

The Dunbars “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1781

June 25, Monday: Asa Dunbar delivered an oration before Trinity Lodge #6 of Freemasons at the church of the Reverend T. Harrington in Lancaster, Massachusetts. (He became the master of the lodge at Keene, New Hampshire.) DUNBAR FAMILY

There is a section of this oration which shines an interesting light upon Thoreau’s use of the concept “point d’appui.” Thoreau must certainly have been aware of this oration, as it had subsequently been printed up by Masonic Brother Isaiah Thomas and thus a copy of this printing most assuredly would have been preserved somewhere in the Thoreau home in Concord: It is justly characteristic of a wise man to build his house upon a rock; —that is to say— upon a foundation that will not fail him. And when we pass into metaphor, and allegory, and consider happiness at large, as a building which every man is concerned in erecting for himself, wisdom, without doubt, requires no less care, than in literal architecture that the basis be sure and immovable. This basis can be no other than truth. Truth is the foundation upon which whoever builds as a skilful mason resteth his whole structure. He never acts a falsehood, nor makes a refuge of lies his confidence. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1783

Toward the end of his 15th-Century captivity in England, Prince James Stewart of Scotland had written a long poem for Lady Joan Beaufort, “The Kingis Quair.” In this year William Tytler discovered the poem among manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Its 7-line stanza scheme would become known as “rime royal.”

US independence was recognized in the Treaty of Paris. READ THE FULL TEXT

The “Peace of 1783” with England, signed by Benjamin Franklin, gave the new national government in North America a chance to settle scores at home. Among other punishments for disloyalty (loyalty), the mansion and estate of Colonel Elisha Jones outside Weston, Massachusetts, at which the Reverend Asa Dunbar and his wife Mary Jones Dunbar, the Colonel’s daughter, had been residing in 1775 and 1776, was confiscated by representatives of the new American government. Suddenly they belonged to someone else. AMERICAN REVOLUTION DUNBAR FAMILY

(Oh, well, you didn’t want David Henry to grow up a poor little rich kid, now did you!)

In Nova Scotia, the number of loyalist refugees from the other colonies who had arrived in Nova Scotia this year was estimated at 20,000. The county of Shelburne was erected. New Edinburgh, in the county of Annapolis, was settled by a party of refugees. CANADA

With the completion of the American Revolution, United Empire Loyalists, both white and black, who wished HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS to remain loyal to Britain, moved to Canada — some accompanied by slaves.

Here are a bunch of American loyalists, leaving everything behind and fleeing to Canada (think of the helicopters taking off from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon, crowded with panicked refugees — it was that sort of situation):

Early in the year Asa Dunbar was admitted to practice law in New Hampshire, and when Elijah Dunbar graduated from Dartmouth College later on during this year he came to study law in the Keene office of his Uncle Asa before beginning to practice law in Keene, New Hampshire and Claremont. At that time Asa, Simeon Olcott, Benjamin West (neither the famous painter nor the Rhode Island almanac-maker), and Daniel Newcomb were the only lawyers in Cheshire County.

January 23, Saturday, 1858: … Mrs. William Monroe told Sophia last evening that she remembered her (Sophia’s) grandfather very well, that he was taller than Father, and used to ride out to their house–she was a Stone and lived where she and her husband did afterward, now Darius Merriam’s–when they made cheeses, to drink the whey, being in consumption. She said that she remembered Grandmother too, Jennie Burns, how she came to the schoolroom (in Middle Street (?), Boston) once, leading her little daughter Elizabeth, the latter so small that she could not tell her name distinctly, but spoke thick and lispingly,– “Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau.”17 JEAN THOREAU JANE “JENNIE” BURNS THOREAU

One should not forbear to mention that it would not have taken much to be “taller than Father” John Thoreau, who was a remarkably short man, and that thus this passage in the journal in no way implied that Jean Thoreau had been tall.

February 7, 1858: …Aunt Louisa Dunbar has talked with Mrs. Monroe, and I can correct or add to my account. She says that she was then only three or four years old, and that she went to school somewhere in Boston, with Aunt Elizabeth and one other child, to a woman named Turner, who kept a spinning-wheel a-going while she taught these three little children. She remembers that one sat on a lignum-vitæ mortar, turned bottom upward, another on a box, and the third on a stool; and then she repeated the story of Jennie Burns bringing her little daughter to the school, as before. … JANE “JENNIE” BURNS THOREAU

February 8, 1858: …Mrs. Monroe says that her mother, Mrs. Stone, respected my grandfather Thoreau very much, because he was a religious man. She remembers his calling one day and inquiring where blue vervain grew, which he wanted to make a syrup for his cough; and she, a girl, happening to know, ran and gathered some. … 17. Vide February 7th. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

JEAN THOREAU HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

YEAR

YEAR: Elijah Dunbar got married with Mary Ralston, daughter of Alexander Ralston of Keene, New Hampshire. They would have six children. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1785

Louisa Dunbar was born to Mary Jones Dunbar and the Reverend Asa Dunbar.

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1787

June 22, Friday: Asa Dunbar, who had been ill, died in Keene, New Hampshire at age 42 after about four years practice of law there, and would be buried with Masonic honors. He left five children, his youngest, Cynthia Dunbar, being but one month of age. Mary Jones Dunbar, his widow, surviving him by a great many years, would remarry. DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU LIFESPANS

Daniel Corneille was replaced as governor of St. Helena by Colonel Sir Robert Brooke (until July 13, 1801 — it would be Governor Brooke who would erect Plantation House).

May 22, Tuesday or 23, Wednesday: Cynthia Dunbar was born in Keene, New Hampshire to Mary Jones Dunbar and the Reverend Asa Dunbar (who had been ill and would die on June 22d at age 42 just as infant Cynthia was reaching one month).

DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU LIFESPANS

By the way, does everyone appreciate how utterly exceptional “Cynthia” was as a name –in spite of the fact that it is the oldest given name in the English language– in the Concord, and Boston, and Massachusetts, and New England, and United States of America of this period?

Can anyone bring to my attention even one person in her HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS ancestry who had borne such a name of a moon goddess — for whom, as her son Henry would put it, “wolves howl in the forest”?

Can anyone bring to my attention even one other American woman bearing this name in the 19th Century? —I have so far found only four others, an older Mulatto woman named Cynthia Miers who applied for membership in the Religious Society of Friends on April 20, 1796 after worshiping with the Quakers of New Jersey for some two decades (causing consternation), and a woman named Cynthia Ann Parker who is on record as having been kidnapped in Texas in 1836, and a Cynthia Hastings, evidently the wife of a Votingham VT grocer, who joined the Brook Farm experiment in social living, and a Cynthia P. Bliss of Pawtucket, Rhode Island who attended the Women’s National Convention of 1850 in Worcester MA! HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1793

February 3, Sunday: In Bridgewater MA, Mary Hayward Dunbar died. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1795

Fall: Mary Jones Dunbar, Sophia Dunbar, Louisa Dunbar and Cynthia Dunbar’s excellent adventure:

After May 26, 1849: … Mary Dunbar widow of Asa Dunbar (first a minister of the 1st church in Salem afterward a laweyer in Keene–) with her 3 children Sophia aged 14 –Louisa 10 –& Cynthia 8, health failing went from Keen to visit her Brother Nathan at Frenchman’s Bay –& her brothers Josiah –Elisha Simeon Stephen –at Sissiboo. She took passage in the fall of ’95 in a 90 ton wood sloop with a crew of 3 men beside the Capt. Sloop going down empty. She had lost her sails coming up –not sea worthy– she had fallen down into the stream bending her sails– were put aboard Saturday afternoon by a boat, found her down in the stream. Sunday fine weather but sick– Were all in berths at midnight Sunday. struck Matinicus rock. They went at sundown –from Boston to Goldsborough hands said they had touched every rock betwen B. & G. Cried all hands on deck. Water came in so fast as to wet her before they got up on deck.– She exclaimed Capt where are we — “God almighty only knows for I dont! The Capt was pulling a rope {illegible letters}

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1796

Timothy Flint and William Tudor, recent graduates of Phillips Academy, matriculated at Harvard College.

During this year Daniel Webster courted Louisa Dunbar on a buggy ride in Boscawen, while he was still a student at Phillips Academy preparing to matriculate at Dartmouth College.

If ever a school had an unblemished record, it was this New Hampshire powerhouse. Set in the state’s third- oldest town, Exeter’s ivy-clad buildings give it the appearance of a geographically displaced Harvard College. It is. Only slightly smaller than arch-rival Andover, Exeter turns out students who are verbally acute, organized, and programmed to achieve; its graduates include Daniel Webster, Jay Rockefeller, and John Irving.

— Jesse Kornbluth, “Exeter’s Passion Play,” Vanity Fair, December 1992, page 218.

DUNBAR FAMILY

At the time “Black Dan” was courting, he did not look like this: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS He looked, instead, like this: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1797

From this point into 1804 Elijah Dunbar would be practicing law in Claremont. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS In 1817, Henry Thoreau would be born in the house of his grandmother’s second husband, Captain Jonas Minott of Concord, deceased. It had been not long after her hazardous voyage from Keene, New Hampshire to Frenchman’s Bay on the coast of Maine and back to Boston in 1795, maybe in this year, that the widow Mary Jones Dunbar had married Captain Minot. Minot owned a lot of wild land in New Hampshire, in what is now the town of Wilmot, and once he and his new wife Mary Jones Dunbar Minot visited this land. This about relations with local Baptists is from Thoreau’s journal:

I have been told (a tradition in our family) that when my Grandmother with her second husband, the Captain [Minott], first went into Kearsarge Gore in her chaise, –where, by the way, the inhabitants baked a pig in expectation of their coming, which, as they did not come immediately, was kept baking for three days,– her chaise so frightened the geese in the road that they actually rose and flew half a mile. And the sheep all ran over the hills, with the pigs after them; and some of the horses they met broke their tackling or threw their riders; so that they had to put their chaise down several times, to save life. When they drove up to the [Baptist] meeting-house, snap, snap went the bridles of several of the horses that were tied there, and they scattered without a benediction. Though it was in the middle of sermon- time, the whole congregation rushed out, “for they thought it was a leather judgment a-comin’.” The people about the door got hold of and got into the vehicle, so that “they liked to have shaken it all to pieces” with curiosity. The minister’s wife got in, too, and “tetered up and down a little”; but she thought it was “a darn tottlish thing,” and said she “would n’t ride in it for nothin’ in the world.” There was no service in the afternoon. The next day some old women took their knitting-work and sat in the chaise. As my Grandfather had a lawsuit with a “witch-woman” there, the people prophesied that she would upset his chaise, till they remembered that there was silver-plating enough about it and the harness, to lay all the witches in the country. My Grandmother also instructed that people how to make coffee, which was pounded in a mortar; and by the time she went out of town, the sound of the mortar was heard in all that land. By this time, no doubt, she and Ceres are equally regarded as mythological, by their posterity.

Franklin Benjamin Sanborn would comment, in regard to this entry in Thoreau’s journal, that it was “plainly a Dunbar story, slightly embroidered by the dramatic talent of Mrs. Thoreau.”

Thoreau would record in 1855 at his mother’s suggestion that David Henry Thoreau had been

Born, July 12, 1817, in the Minott House, on the Virginia Road, where Father occupied Grandmother’s thirds, carrying on the farm. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

The Minott house on the Virginia Road

The Thoreaus would leave this gray house on Virginia Road in March 1818, when David Henry was eight months old. They would move to Chelmsford, where Cynthia Dunbar had spent the rest of her childhood, to live in a red house with Mary Jones Dunbar Minot. We learn from this that Thoreau had a sort of a family relationship with the Minots or Minotts who lived in Concord, and we can learn that the name was indifferently spelled with one or two t’s.

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1798

June 23, Saturday: In Concord, the widower Jonas Minott posted his intentions of remarrying in Boston with the 50- year-old widow of the recently deceased Reverend Asa Dunbar, Mary Jones Dunbar of Keene, New Hampshire.

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1806

Elijah Dunbar was chosen representative from Keene, New Hampshire to the legislature. Joel Parker became a partner in his office, and then became the active manager for the business. Elijah evidently began to do more trout fishing, often with General James Wilson, Jr., than he did court work. DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1808

In New Hampshire, Elijah Dunbar was being re-elected as representative from Keene, New Hampshire to the legislature. DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1810

In New Hampshire, Elijah Dunbar was again being re-elected as representative from Keene, New Hampshire to the legislature. DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1812

2d half of January: During the courtship of John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar, John had been living on the Concord square and learning merchandising from Deacon John White, while Cynthia, the daughter of Mrs. Captain Minot, had been living with her mother in the farmhouse on Virginia Road. At this point what usually happened in New England during courtship in those days happened, and Cynthia became pregnant. THE DEACONS OF CONCORD

DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY

May 11, Monday: John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar were united in Concord, in a wedding ceremony officiated over by the Reverend Ezra Ripley. Marriages

Spouses Marriage Date Marriage Place

THOREAU, John & Rebecca Kettell Jun, 1797 Concord

THOREAU, John & Cynthia Dunbar May, 1812 Concord HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

John in later years Cynthia in later years

DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY

Cynthia would have been a noticeably pregnant bride, since Helen Louisa Thoreau would be born on October 22nd, but I simply do not know whether in that time and that place such a thing would have been a scandal (at least during earlier New England generations, a bride being already pregnant would have been quite normal and expectable).

At the turn of the century rural women in Massachusetts had been marrying at over 23 years of age, three years later than their mothers (their daughters would be marrying, in the 1830s, at over 25 years of age, two years later than this generation and five years later than their grandmothers). Therefore the age of this bride, 25 years, was not at all unusual for the time and the place.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 2nd day 11th of 5 Mo// The usual rounds of buisness & no peculiar occurrence ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS October 22, Thursday: John Adams was born in Medway 25 miles south of Concord as the crow flies — and would grow up there. On the same day a 1st child, Helen Louisa Thoreau, was born to John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, who had married one another on the eleventh of May in that year.

DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU GENEALOGY

John in later years Cynthia in later years We may note that when this child would belatedly be recorded in the Concord town records, she would be recorded as having been born as of the year 1813. (The town’s records are not all that accurate or complete, but might this error have been purposefully registered in order to remove any doubt as to Helen’s legitimacy as the eldest child of this very new marriage?) Births

Name Sex Birth Date Birth Place Father’s Name Mother’s Name

THOREAU, John 1754 Concord

THOREAU, Mary F 1786 Concord John

THOREAU, Sarah 1791 Concord

THOREAU, Helen L. F 1813 Concord John Cynthia

THOREAU, John M 1815 Concord John Cynthia

THOREAU, Sophia Elizabeth F . 27, 1819 Chelmsford John Cynthia

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 22 of 10 M / Our friend Christo Hely was in town & attended Meeting & the funeral of Sam Wilcox - but being previously engaged I went to Conanicut with our friend D Buffum to attend the funeral of Job Watson where David was largely & very acceptably engaged in declaring the truth to the People. - We dined at John Weedens & got home before sunset. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1813

March 20, Saturday: The Concord farmer Captain Jonas Minott used to roast wild apples in a long row on the hearth while the coals were still glowing. He would put a glass of milk on his nightstand to sip when he woke during the night.

On this particular morning, however, Mary Jones Dunbar Minot, who would be David Henry Thoreau’s grandmother, found the glass still full of milk in the morning — and her husband Jonas dead at the age of 77 years 11 months. She would receive a portion of his house and grounds on the Virginia Road as part of the “widow’s thirds” of his estate. When they had married, the widow Mary Jones Dunbar had brought along several children from her previous marriage, to the Reverend Asa Dunbar. Henry Thoreau would have this to say to his Journal on May 26, 1857 in regard to his mother Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau’s childhood in the Virginia Road home: My mother was telling me to-night of the sounds which she used to hear summer nights when she was young and lived on Virginia Road. The lowing of cows or cackling of geese or the beating of a distant drum, but above all Joe Meriam whistling to his team, for he was an admirable whistler. She says she used to get up at midnight and go and sit on the doorstep when all in the house was asleep and she could hear nothing in the world but the ticking of the clock in the house behind her.

THOREAU RESIDENCES

Of course, nowadays one would be likely to hear only the roar of military jets making practice takeoffs and landings at nearby Hanscom Airfield.

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS 1st half of October: Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau became pregnant for the 2d time. JOHN THOREAU

DUNBAR THOREAU FAMILY GENEALOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1814

July 5, Tuesday: As part of the War of 1812, American forces under General Jacob Brown turned back British forces under Major-General Phineas Riall at the Chippawa River of the Niagara front, after a 20-minute exchange of musket fire during which 148 British and 60 American soldiers lost their lives.

A son, John Thoreau, Jr., was born to John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau.18

John in later years Cynthia in later years

July 5th was an unusual date for a childbirth, in a rural white American community. For whatever reasons, the white babies were being birthed most frequently during the months of last winter and early spring, and sometimes, in the North, there was another, smaller, peak of white births in the early fall. However, uniformly, babies were born to white people least often in the late spring and early summer.19 (I can remember, as a child, listening to my aunts talking among themselves about timing children so they didn’t have to be “heavy” just during the heat of the summer.)

When the birth would be recorded in Concord’s town records, it would be recorded as of the wrong year: Births

Name Sex Birth Date Birth Place Father’s Name Mother’s Name

THOREAU, John 1754 Concord

THOREAU, Mary F 1786 Concord John

THOREAU, Sarah 1791 Concord

THOREAU, Helen L. F 1813 Concord John Cynthia

THOREAU, John M 1815 Concord John Cynthia

THOREAU, Sophia Elizabeth F Sept. 27, 1819 Chelmsford John Cynthia

18. The gravestone, saying that John had been born in 1815, is incorrect, for the older brother had turned three before the younger brother was born. Horace Rice Hosmer reported, much later, that his mother Lydia Davis Hosmer had told him that one of John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau’s children had “narrowly escaped being born on Lee’s Hill.” 19. The pattern was quite different for enslaved Americans, slave births tending to peak at midsummer and to bottom out in late fall and early winter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS At some point during the second half of this year, Mrs. Rebecca Kettell Thoreau, the stepmother who had cared for the Thoreau children in Concord, including John Thoreau, died.20 John and Cynthia were living in Boston, and John would write thence about this death to sisters in Bangor ME with his son John, Jr. on his knee.

DUNBAR FAMILY

THOREAU LIFESPANS

20. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn said that “Mary and Nancy” Thoreau died before coming of age — he must have meant Sarah Thoreau and some other Thoreau daughter since it seems unlikely that there would have been a daughter Mary as well as a daughter Maria, and since Nancy Thoreau married a Billings in Maine and had a daughter Rebecca Jane Billings. He said that “David Thoreau” died before he had any occupation —I wonder whether he meant David Orrock, Henry’s cousin after whom he was named, who died before he had any occupation. If there were eight Thoreau children to rear, John being the eldest, what were the names of all eight, and what was their birth order? John Thoreau’s sister Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau, was reared, like him and the other six children, in the Thoreau home in Concord after the death of their mother Jane “Jennie” Burns Thoreau in 1896, by Jean Thoreau’s second wife, the widow Mrs. Rebecca Kettell Thoreau. Eventually Elizabeth Orrock Thoreau married and went to live in Maine. So: what was her husband’s name, Thatcher? Where did they live? Did Henry visit them on his trips to Maine? And what were the names and ages of the Kettell children with whom the Thoreau children were reared? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1815

The widow Mary Jones Dunbar Minot, whose 1st husband, the Reverend Asa Dunbar, had become a Mason in 1779, and in 1781 had become master of Trinity Lodge #6 in Keene, New Hampshire in this year was able to apply to the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts for financial aid. This request was endorsed by her minister, the Reverend Ezra Ripley:

DUNBAR FAMILY [In] the settlement of the estate of her ... husband, Jonas Minot ... she has been peculiarly unfortunate, and become very much straightened in the means of living comfortably; ... individual friends have been ... generous, otherwise she must have suffered extremely; ... being thus reduced, and feeling the weight of cares, of years and of widowhood to be very heavy, after having seen better days, she is induced by the advice of friends, as well as her own exigencies, to apply for aid to the benevolence and charity of the Masonic Fraternity. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1816

Middle of October: Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, mother of two, became pregnant for the 3d time. JOHN THOREAU

THOREAU GENEALOGY

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1817

At about this point John Thoreau’s mortgage on his 8th share to the house at Number 57 in Prince Street in Boston was discharged.

DUNBAR HENRY’S FAMILY RELATIVES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS The Thoreaus moved to Concord where David Henry would be born.

Thoreau recorded in 1855 at his mother Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau’s suggestion that David Henry Thoreau had been ...

Born, July 12, 1817, in the Minott House, on the Virginia Road, where Father occupied Grandmother’s HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS thirds, carrying on the farm.

The Minott house on the Virginia Road THOREAU RESIDENCES

Thoreau continued in 1855:

The Catherines the other half of the house. Bob Catherines and John threw up the turkeys. Lived there about eight months. Si Merriam next neighbor. Uncle David died when I was six weeks old.

David Henry would be born on his grandmother’s farm, on the Bedford levels of Virginia Road 21/2 miles northeast of Concord, in sight of Walden Woods and not too far from the Concord River. This house was unpainted and gray, and the child was born in the easternmost of the upstairs chambers. The dooryard was unfenced and grassy, and led down to a brook. This was the home in which Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, little David Henry’s mother, had spent her own childhood, and another family, the Catherines, was renting one end of the house, and Thoreau remembered that Bob Catherines and his brother John Thoreau, Jr. had had some fun tossing their turkey hens up into the air to make them fly and flap and gobble — if you’ve never done this, you’ve really missed something. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1818

October: The Thoreaus relocated from Josiah Davis’s rental house at 47 Lexington Road in Concord to a red house next door to the church in Chelmsford (Chelmsford was where Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau had spent the rest of her childhood) to live with Mary Jones Dunbar Minot. We learn from this that Henry Thoreau had a sort of a family relationship with the Minots or Minotts who lived in Concord, and we can learn that the name was indifferently spelled with one or two t’s.

DUNBAR FAMILY

“Is a house but a gall on the face of the earth, a nidus which some insect has provided for its young?” –JOURNAL May 1, 1857

The Red House, where Grandmother lived, we the west side till October, 1818, hiring of Josiah Davis, agent for Woodwards. (There were Cousin Charles and Uncle C. more or less.) According to day-book. Father hired of Proctor, October 16, 1818, and shop of Spaulding, November 10, 1818. Day-book first used by Grandfather, dated 1797. His part cut out and used by Father in Concord in 1808-9, and in Chelmsford, 1818- 19-20-21. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Father John Thoreau had borrowed from his stepmother and the family home at Number 57 on Prince Street in Boston had been mortgaged for $1,000.00 but his business had not done well. That spring he would need to sign the deed over to his sisters. There is a picture of this rather unimposing house on page 118 of the Reverend Edward Griffin Porter’s RAMBLES IN OLD BOSTON, NEW ENGLAND (Boston 1887):

THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1819

June 24, Thursday: Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau was born in Chelmsford MA, the 4th and, surprisingly, the final child of John Thoreau, Senior and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau.

John in later years Cynthia in later years

DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES

An intriguing factoid is that although this birth unlike David Henry’s is on record in Concord’s town records, it is on record not as of this date but as of September 27th: Births

Name Sex Birth Date Birth Place Father’s Name Mother’s Name

THOREAU, John 1754 Concord

THOREAU, Mary F 1786 Concord John

THOREAU, Sarah 1791 Concord

THOREAU, Helen L. F 1813 Concord John Cynthia

THOREAU, John M 1815 Concord John Cynthia

THOREAU, Sophia Elizabeth F Sept. 27, 1819 Chelmsford John Cynthia HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Cynthia had her last baby at age 33 although, in the 18th Century, mothers usually had had their final pregnancy in their early 40s, presumably because, since the turn of the 19th Century, white women in New England towns had been having their final pregnancies at an earlier age in each decade, and in that way creating fewer children per family. In general, the number of children per white family increased as one traveled toward the frontier of white settlement, reaching seven or so in Illinois and Indiana; nevertheless the usual number in Massachusetts and Connecticut in the 1830s was still five or more, so the Thoreaus’ four children, Helen Louisa Thoreau, then John Thoreau, Jr., then David Henry Thoreau, and then finally Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau, would have been considered to be a small family or a family that was still being eagerly worked on.

Walter Roy Harding’s THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU: A BIOGRAPHY. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966: “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

WALTER HARDING’S BIOGRAPHY Chapter 1 (1817-1823) -Downing gives a cursory account of the Thoreau and Dunbar heritage and more fully traces the nature and movement of the Thoreau family in the first five years of Henry’s life. Thoreau’s father, John Thoreau, while intellectual, “lived quietly, peacefully and contentedly in the shadow of his wife,” Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, who was dynamic and outspoken with a strong love for nature and compassion for the downtrodden. •1st Helen Louisa Thoreau -quiet, retiring, eventually a teacher. • 2d John Thoreau, Jr. -“his father turned inside out,” personable, interested in ornithology, also taught. • 3d David Henry Thoreau (born July 12,1817) -speculative but not noticeably precocious. •4th Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau -independent, talkative, ultimately took over father’s business and edited Henry’s posthumous publications. The Thoreau’s constantly struggled with debt, and in 1818 John Sr. gave up his farm outside Concord and moved into town. Later the same year he moved his family to Chelmsford MA where he opened a shop which soon failed and sent him packing to Boston to teach school. (Robert L. Lace, January-March 1986)

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 24th of 6th M / With My H & John in a Chaise went to to attend the Moy [Monthly] Meeting. Stoped on the way at Uncle Saml Thurstons & were soon joined by Elizabeth Walker & Company, after a little refreshment we went to meeting, which was a favord season, Elizabeth having much to communicate in the course of the public Meeting, & I have no doubt that the living Power of Truth rose into dominion in many minds present. — HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS In the last meeting we had but little buisness, but the little that we had was pretty well transacted. — We dined at R Mitchells & towards night rode home. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1822

I’ll insert this here, since at this point little David Henry Thoreau is five years old. This is a story passed on by Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson in his 1917 volume HENRY THOREAU AS REMEMBERED BY A YOUNG FRIEND EDWARD WALDO EMERSON, which he heard had been related by Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau to an old friend. I would caution the reader to take into consideration, in reading such stories, the general context of stories as they were told by parents about their children in the early 19th Century, which they need to understand is most definitely not the same context as now. The story may actually tell us more about the parent than about the child:

John and Henry slept together in the trundlebed, that obsolete and delightful children’s bed, telescoping on large castors under the parental four-poster. John would go to sleep at once, but Henry often lay long awake. His mother found the little boy lying so one night, long after he had gone upstairs, and said, “Why, Henry dear, why don’t you go to sleep?” “Mother,” said he, “I have been looking through the stars to see if I could n’t see God behind them.”

DUNBAR FAMILY JOHN THOREAU, JR. However, just in case this story actually does have something to do with the appearance of the night sky over Concord, Massachusetts, here is what the night sky at the latitude of Concord, Massachusetts amounts to: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1823

Per Walter Roy Harding’s THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU: A BIOGRAPHY (NY: Knopf, 1966): “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Chapter 1 (1817-1823) -Downing gives a cursory account of the Thoreau and Dunbar heritage and more fully traces the nature and movement of the Thoreau family in the first five years of Henry’s life. Thoreau’s father, John, while intellectual, “lived quietly, peacefully and contentedly in the shadow of his wife,” Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, who was dynamic and outspoken with a strong love for nature and compassion for the downtrodden. • 1st Helen -quiet, retiring, eventually a teacher. • 2nd John Jr. -“his father turned inside out,” personable, interested in ornithology, also taught. • 3rd Henry (born July 12,1817) -speculative but not noticeably precocious. • 4th Sophia -independent, talkative, ultimately took over father’s business and edited Henry’s posthumous publications. The Thoreau’s constantly struggled with debt, and in 1818 John Sr. gave up his farm outside Concord and moved into town. Later the same year he moved his family to Chelmsford where he opened a shop which soon failed and sent him packing to Boston to teach school.

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

In 1823 uncle Charles Jones Dunbar discovered graphite in New Hampshire and invited John Thoreau to join Dunbar and Stow Pencil Makers back in Concord. Henry’s Concord youth was “typical of any small town American boy of the 19th century.” Henry attended Miss Phœbe Wheeler’s private “infants” school, then the public grammar school, where he studied the Bible and English classics such as William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Dr. Samuel Johnson and the Essayists. Henry was considered “stupid” and “unsympathetic” by schoolmates he would not join in play, earning the nicknames “Judge” and “the fine scholar with the big nose.” At school he was withdrawn and anti-social but he loved outdoor excursions. From 1828-1834 Henry attended Concord Academy (Phineas Allen, preceptor). Allen taught the classics -Virgil, Sallust, Caesar, Euripides, Homer, Xenophon, Voltaire, Molière and Racine in the original languages- and emphasized composition. Henry also benefitted from the Concord Lyceum and particularly the natural history lectures presented there. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

WALTER HARDING’S BIOGRAPHY Chapter 3 (1833-1837) -Thoreau enters Harvard (president Josiah Quincy), having barely squeezed by his entrance exams and rooming with Charles S. Wheeler Thoreau’s Harvard curriculum: Greek (8 terms under Felton and Dunkin)-composition, grammar, “Greek Antiquities,” Xenophon, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer. Latin Grammar (8 terms under Beck and McKean)-composition, “Latin Antiquities,” Livy, Horace, Cicero, Seneca, Juvenal. Mathematics (7 terms under Pierce and Lovering) English (8 terms under ET Channing, Giles, W&G Simmons)- grammar, rhetoric, logic, forensics, criticism, elocution, declamations, themes. Mental Philosophy (under Giles) Paley, Stewart. Natural Philosophy (under Lovering)-astronomy. Intellectual Philosophy (under Bowen) Locke, Say, Story. Theology (2 terms under H Ware)-Paley, Butler, New Testament. Modern Languages (voluntary) Italian (5 terms under Bachi) French (4 terms under Surault) German (4 terms under Bokum) Spanish (2 terms under Sales) Attended voluntary lectures on German and Northern literature (Longfellow), mineralogy (Webster), anatomy (Warren), natural history (Harris). Thoreau was an above average student who made mixed impressions upon his classmates. In the spring of ‘36 Thoreau withdrew due to illness -later taught for a brief period in Canton under the Rev. Orestes A. Brownson, a leading New England intellectual who Harding suggests profoundly influenced Thoreau. (Robert L. Lace, January-March 1986) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Allen, Gay Wilson. “A New Look at Emerson and Science,” pages 58-78 in LITERATURE AND IDEAS IN AMERICA: ESSAYS IN MEMORY OF HARRY HAYDEN CLARK. Robert Falk, ed. Athens OH: Ohio UP, 1975 “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Allen examines NATURE and Waldo Emerson’s attitudes toward science in the light of four of Emerson’s early lectures. These lectures, given in 1833-34, were about science, and were titled “The Uses of Natural History,” “On the Relation of Man to the Globe,” “Water,” and “The Naturalist.” Allen’s 1975 essay furthers the work done by Harry Haydon Clark in his 1931 essay “Emerson and Science;” Clark did not have access to these lectures. The first lecture, “The Uses of Natural History,” was, Allen says, a “preliminary sketch” for NATURE. In this lecture Emerson elaborated on the uses of nature much as he did in NATURE: how nature contributes to human health (beauty, rest); to civilization (with due Emersonian skepticism about technology); to knowledge of truth (here Allen discusses the influence of geology on Emerson: how the age of the earth and the slowness of earth’s transformative processes confuted traditional religious doctrine); and to self-understanding (nature as language that God speaks to humanity — nature as image or metaphor of mind) (60-64). Emerson’s second lecture, “On the Relation of Man to the Globe,” was also a preliminary sketch for NATURE. In this lecture, Allen says, Emerson drew heavily on his readings in geology, along with some biology and chemistry, and attempted to demonstrate how marvelously the world is adapted for human life. (64) Emerson’s sources included Laplace, Mitscherlich, Cuvier; his arguments echoed Lamarck (evolution, nature adapted to humans) and [the Reverend William] Paley (argument from design) (64-67). The third lecture, “Water,” was Emerson’s “most technical” according to Allen, which is, perhaps, why it is not discussed at any length. It is also not assessed for its scientific accuracy. Allen does say that Emerson “read up on the geological effects of water, the laws of thermodynamics, the hydrostatic press, and related subjects” (67). Allen says that Emerson’s fourth lecture, “The Naturalist,” “made a strong plea for a recognition of the importance of science in education” (60). Emerson “emphasized particularly the study of nature to promote esthetic and moral growth” (67). Emerson wanted science for the poet and poetry for the scientist; the fundamental search for the causa causans (67-69). He was reading Gray and other technical sources, observing nature, and reading philosophers of science, especially Coleridge and Goethe (68). Allen says that the value of these lectures is not merely the light they shed on Nature but what they reveal about “his reading and thinking about science before he had fused his ideas thus derived with the Neoplatonic and ‘transcendental’ ideas of Plotinus, Swedenborg, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle, and seventeenth-century English Platonists” (69). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Allen concludes that Waldo Emerson’s theory of nature in NATURE is derived far more from Neoplatonism than modern scientific knowledge, but Emerson was not turning his back on science; he wanted instead to spiritualize science, to base science on the theory that the physical world is an emanation of spirit, “the apparition of God” (Chapter 6), or “a projection of God in the unconscious.” (70) Allen contends that Emerson’s theory anticipates Phenomenology in its emphasis on mind/world interactions and correspondences. Science, Allen says, continued to have a “pervasive influence” on Emerson’s thought even after 1836: Indeed, the two most basic concepts in his philosophy, which he never doubted, were “compensation” and “polarity,” both derived from scientific “laws,” i.e. for every action there is a reaction, and the phenomena of negative and positive poles in electrodynamics. To these might also be added “circularity,” which translated into poetic metaphors the principle of “conservation of energy.” (75) One could argue, I think, that these scientific laws were themselves “derived from” philosophical and metaphysical speculations (e.g. Kant); their life-long conceptual importance to Emerson, in other words, does not seem precisely described as scientific. [Cecily F. Brown, March 1992] HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS March: John Thoreau, Senior left off teaching school at 6 Cornhill Court in Boston, David Henry Thoreau was taken out of the Boston infant school, and the Thoreaus removed from Whitwell’s house on Pinckney Street in Boston to rent space in the Jonas Hastings house in Concord, built in about 1790, Deacon William Parkman’s brick house at the corner of Main Street and Walden Street,

where the father would go into the pencil-making business of Dunbar & Stow that was making use of graphite that Charles Jones Dunbar had discovered in 1821 near Bristol in New Hampshire, and also take up responsibility for the mill, milldam, race, and pond on Mill Brook just south of the “Milldam” district.

(Over the years the family would be living in nine different Concord buildings — nine, that is, in Concord alone, without adding in all the places they had lived elsewhere.)

We now know exactly where Henry’s Uncle Charles had discovered the plumbago because Dr. Brad Dean has tracked down the following source information:

Collections, Historical & Miscellaneous, and Monthly Literary Journal. Vol. 2. Concord, N.H.: J. B. Moore, 1823. Edited by John Farmer and Jacob B. Moore. Plumbago, or Graphite.—This article has lately been discovered in the towns of Bristol and Francestown in this State. In Bristol, it has been found of superior excellence, and is said to be very abundant. By the politeness of Mr. Charles S. Dunbar, the proprietor of the land which contains it, the editors have been furnished with several specimens, one of which, they sent to Dr. MITCHELL of New-York, who, in a communication on the subject, speaks as follows: “Your specimen of Plumbago was cordially received. I set a value upon it, by reason of the native and Fredonian source whence it came, and on account of its own apparent worth and excellence. “It is pleasing to find our landed proprietors inquiring somewhat below the surface, for the good things contained in the grants they received by superficial measurement.—When they shall go deep into the matter, they will learn the importance of the French maxim, approfondessez, which, you know, means, go to the bottom of the subject. I trust the time is approaching when the purchaser of lands will require not merely a geometrical description, but a geological one; whereby the purchaser shall know that the gets so many acres free and clear, and moreover, such and so many strata nice and proper. “I congratulate you on the discovery of such a treasure in our country. Much is due to the Mines that supply HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS us with pencils and crucibles.” Specimens have been furnished Professor Dana, of Dartmouth College, who thinks it equal to the celebrated Burrowdale ore. That which has been discovered in Francestown is said to be of good quality. We are not informed whether it exists in large or small quantities. There has also been found in the south part of Francestown, near Lewis’s mills, some beautiful specimens of Rock Crystal.

Which is to say, Uncle Charles had discovered the graphite deposit in the Bristol, New Hampshire area, here:

(Brad has visited the area and tells us there’s nothing much there to be seen now, to mark the place where the graphite had been.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS This photograph of Concord Center, taken in about 1865, shows in the distance the Jonas Hastings house belonging to Deacon William Parkman in which the Thoreaus were to reside from 1823 to 1826, at the corner of Main and Walden Streets.

As you can see, initially the Hastings corner had projected out into what is now part of Main Street, so that the house would need to be moved backward to allow Main Street to be widened prior to the opening in 1873 of the newly constructed Concord Free Public Library. (The Hastings house would ultimately be taken down to HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS make way for the business block put up by pharmacist John C. Friend in 1892.)

THOREAU RESIDENCES David Henry Thoreau began to attend Miss Phœbe Wheeler’s infant school. Here is a later reminisce of this period in the life of the Thoreau family: “Mother reminds me that when we lived at the Parkman house she lost a ruff a yard and a half long and with an edging three yards long to it, which she had laid on the grass to whiten, and, looking for it, she saw a robin tugging at the tape string of a stay on the line. He would repeatedly get it in his mouth, fly off and be brought up when he got to the end of his tether. Miss Ward thereupon tore a fine linen handkerchief into strips and threw them out, and the robin carried them all off. She had no doubt that he took the ruff.”

April 21, 1852: … Was that a large shad bush where fathers mill used to be.? There is quite a water fall beyond. where the old dam was Where the rapids commence at the outlet of the pond, the water is singularly creased as it rushes to the fall HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS One of little David’s toys, which he later said had really caught his attention, was a little pewter soldier (had it been cast at Concord’s new lead factory?).

The Thoreau family, John Thoreau, Senior and Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau with the 5-year-old David Henry Thoreau, and his older two siblings Helen Louisa Thoreau and John Thoreau, Jr. and his younger sibling Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau, with their grandmother the widow Mary Jones Dunbar Minot, spent a memorable pic nic day that March on the exposed sandbar at the mouth of the cove on Walden Pond.21 When Henry remembered this for WALDEN, below, he remembered it as his having been four years old, but later he corrected this to his having been five years old:

WALDEN: When I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston to this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to the pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now to-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. The pines still stand here older than I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked my supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around, preparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort springs from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even I have at length helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and one of the results of my presence and influence is seen in these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines.

21. The water level of Walden Pond would be correspondingly low again, and the sandbar again exposed, in the year 2002! HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

While he was still age 6, David would be tossed by a Concord cow.

Henry would also later record another childhood memory from approximately this period, of driving cattle down the lane past Walden Pond. This has some historical context, which I will quote from page 140 of Ruth R. Wheeler’s CONCORD: CLIMATE FOR FREEDOM:

After the Narragansett grants to veterans of King Philip’s War, Concord farmers acquired pastures in New Ipswich, Ashburnham, Westminster, Templeton, and Holden, sometimes adjacent to farms owned by sons and cousins. Every May the dry cows and young stock were assembled and driven over the road to summer pasture. The men and boys made the drive on foot or on horseback and as roads improved a “democrat” or utility vehicle went along to hold oats for the horses, blankets, and a youngster or two. Farmers on the way would rent a fenced field to hold the stock at night and would allow the boys to sleep in the barn. Reciprocally, Concord farmers had fenced yards to hold overnight upcountry stock being driven to market. These were very small drives compared to those we see in pictures of the West, but they were usually a boy’s first trip away from home: they stood for romance and adventure. During the nineteenth century, as Boston grew and became a busy seaport, traders gradually took over the business, buying up cows, driving them off to pasture, feeding them in the fall on the aftermath in Concord fields, and finally driving them down to stockyards in Watertown or dressing them off in Concord for salt beef. Of course, this gave farmers extra income as butchers, tanners, candlemakers, and coopers. Now picket fences became necessary in the village to keep stray animals out of one’s yard. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Note that I am not saying that Thoreau’s memory of driving cattle past Walden Pond would have had to have originated specifically in this Year of Our Lord 1822, nor that it was of such a large herd or over such a long distance, but only that it is likely that he would have held this memory in the context of such local cow business precisely as now an adult’s memories of cows encountered on the farm during childhood would be held in the context of stories heard about the “Wild West” and about “cowboys” on “cattle drives.”

Now that I have mentioned some Spring and Autumn business that Thoreau would have been observing in about this year of 1822, I will take the occasion, and mention some Winter business that he may well have been observing in about this year as well: Bear in mind that there were no snowplows in those days of sleighs and sledges. Public roads were not plowed during the winter, they were packed. The device that packed the snow was termed a “pung” and it was pulled by oxen rather than horses. If the snow was deep or wet, the pung would need to be pulled by several yoke of oxen. A good pack of snow on a road could sometimes assure smooth sleighing for the duration of the winter. THOREAU RESIDENCES

The remark about the flute at this point in WALDEN may remind us that Thoreau’s intent was, importantly, to see with “new infant eyes.”

After August 6, 1845: … Well now to-night my flute awakes the echoes over this very water, but one generation of pines has fallen and with their stumps I have cooked my supper, And a lusty growth of oaks and pines is rising all around its brim and preparing its wilder aspect for new infant eyes. … HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Per Walter Roy Harding’s THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU: A BIOGRAPHY (NY: Knopf, 1966): “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Chapter 1 (1817-1823) -Downing gives a cursory account of the Thoreau and Dunbar heritage and more fully traces the nature and movement of the Thoreau family in the first five years of Henry’s life. Thoreau’s father, John, while intellectual, “lived quietly, peacefully and contentedly in the shadow of his wife,” Mrs. Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, who was dynamic and outspoken with a strong love for nature and compassion for the downtrodden. • 1st Helen -quiet, retiring, eventually a teacher. • 2nd John Jr. -“his father turned inside out,” personable, interested in ornithology, also taught. • 3rd Henry (born July 12,1817) -speculative but not noticeably precocious. • 4th Sophia -independent, talkative, ultimately took over father’s business and edited Henry’s posthumous publications. The Thoreau’s constantly struggled with debt, and in 1818 John Sr. gave up his farm outside Concord and moved into town. Later the same year he moved his family to Chelmsford where he opened a shop which soon failed and sent him packing to Boston to teach school.

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

In 1823 uncle Charles Jones Dunbar discovered graphite in New Hampshire and invited John Thoreau to join Dunbar and Stow Pencil Makers back in Concord. Henry’s Concord youth was “typical of any small town American boy of the 19th century.” Henry attended Miss Phœbe Wheeler’s private “infants” school, then the public grammar school, where he studied the Bible and English classics such as William Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Dr. Samuel Johnson and the Essayists. Henry was considered “stupid” and “unsympathetic” by schoolmates he would not join in play, earning the nicknames “Judge” and “the fine scholar with the big nose.” At school he was withdrawn and anti-social but he loved outdoor excursions. From 1828-1834 Henry attended Concord Academy (Phineas Allen, preceptor). Allen taught the classics -Virgil, Sallust, Caesar, Euripides, Homer, Xenophon, Voltaire, Molière and Racine in the original languages- and emphasized composition. Henry also benefitted from the Concord Lyceum and particularly the natural history lectures presented there. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

WALTER HARDING’S BIOGRAPHY Chapter 3 (1833-1837) -Thoreau enters Harvard (president Josiah Quincy), having barely squeezed by his entrance exams and rooming with Charles S. Wheeler Thoreau’s Harvard curriculum: Greek (8 terms under Felton and Dunkin)-composition, grammar, “Greek Antiquities,” Xenophon, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Sophocles, Euripides, Homer. Latin Grammar (8 terms under Beck and McKean)-composition, “Latin Antiquities,” Livy, Horace, Cicero, Seneca, Juvenal. Mathematics (7 terms under Pierce and Lovering) English (8 terms under ET Channing, Giles, W&G Simmons)- grammar, rhetoric, logic, forensics, criticism, elocution, declamations, themes. Mental Philosophy (under Giles) Paley, Stewart. Natural Philosophy (under Lovering)-astronomy. Intellectual Philosophy (under Bowen) Locke, Say, Story. Theology (2 terms under H Ware)-Paley, Butler, New Testament. Modern Languages (voluntary) Italian (5 terms under Bachi) French (4 terms under Surault) German (4 terms under Bokum) Spanish (2 terms under Sales) Attended voluntary lectures on German and Northern literature (Longfellow), mineralogy (Webster), anatomy (Warren), natural history (Harris). Thoreau was an above average student who made mixed impressions upon his classmates. In the spring of ‘36 Thoreau withdrew due to illness -later taught for a brief period in Canton under the Rev. Orestes A. Brownson, a leading New England intellectual who Harding suggests profoundly influenced Thoreau. (Robert L. Lace, January-March 1986) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Allen, Gay Wilson. “A New Look at Emerson and Science,” pages 58-78 in LITERATURE AND IDEAS IN AMERICA: ESSAYS IN MEMORY OF HARRY HAYDEN CLARK. Robert Falk, ed. Athens OH: Ohio UP, 1975 “A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Allen examines NATURE and Waldo Emerson’s attitudes toward science in the light of four of Emerson’s early lectures. These lectures, given in 1833-34, were about science, and were titled “The Uses of Natural History,” “On the Relation of Man to the Globe,” “Water,” and “The Naturalist.” Allen’s 1975 essay furthers the work done by Harry Haydon Clark in his 1931 essay “Emerson and Science;” Clark did not have access to these lectures. The first lecture, “The Uses of Natural History,” was, Allen says, a “preliminary sketch” for NATURE. In this lecture Emerson elaborated on the uses of nature much as he did in NATURE: how nature contributes to human health (beauty, rest); to civilization (with due Emersonian skepticism about technology); to knowledge of truth (here Allen discusses the influence of geology on Emerson: how the age of the earth and the slowness of earth’s transformative processes confuted traditional religious doctrine); and to self-understanding (nature as language that God speaks to humanity — nature as image or metaphor of mind) (60-64). Emerson’s second lecture, “On the Relation of Man to the Globe,” was also a preliminary sketch for NATURE. In this lecture, Allen says, Emerson drew heavily on his readings in geology, along with some biology and chemistry, and attempted to demonstrate how marvelously the world is adapted for human life. (64) Emerson’s sources included Laplace, Mitscherlich, Cuvier; his arguments echoed Lamarck (evolution, nature adapted to humans) and [the Reverend William] Paley (argument from design) (64-67). The third lecture, “Water,” was Emerson’s “most technical” according to Allen, which is, perhaps, why it is not discussed at any length. It is also not assessed for its scientific accuracy. Allen does say that Emerson “read up on the geological effects of water, the laws of thermodynamics, the hydrostatic press, and related subjects” (67). Allen says that Emerson’s fourth lecture, “The Naturalist,” “made a strong plea for a recognition of the importance of science in education” (60). Emerson “emphasized particularly the study of nature to promote esthetic and moral growth” (67). Emerson wanted science for the poet and poetry for the scientist; the fundamental search for the causa causans (67-69). He was reading Gray and other technical sources, observing nature, and reading philosophers of science, especially Coleridge and Goethe (68). Allen says that the value of these lectures is not merely the light they shed on Nature but what they reveal about “his reading and thinking about science before he had fused his ideas thus derived with the Neoplatonic and ‘transcendental’ ideas of Plotinus, Swedenborg, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle, and seventeenth-century English Platonists” (69). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Allen concludes that Waldo Emerson’s theory of nature in NATURE is derived far more from Neoplatonism than modern scientific knowledge, but Emerson was not turning his back on science; he wanted instead to spiritualize science, to base science on the theory that the physical world is an emanation of spirit, “the apparition of God” (Chapter 6), or “a projection of God in the unconscious.” (70) Allen contends that Emerson’s theory anticipates Phenomenology in its emphasis on mind/world interactions and correspondences. Science, Allen says, continued to have a “pervasive influence” on Emerson’s thought even after 1836: Indeed, the two most basic concepts in his philosophy, which he never doubted, were “compensation” and “polarity,” both derived from scientific “laws,” i.e. for every action there is a reaction, and the phenomena of negative and positive poles in electrodynamics. To these might also be added “circularity,” which translated into poetic metaphors the principle of “conservation of energy.” (75) One could argue, I think, that these scientific laws were themselves “derived from” philosophical and metaphysical speculations (e.g. Kant); their life-long conceptual importance to Emerson, in other words, does not seem precisely described as scientific. [Cecily F. Brown, March 1992] HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1830

Miss Louisa Dunbar, Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau’s unmarried sister, moved in with the Thoreau family in the Shattuck house at 63 Main Street in Concord.

THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1834

THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DUNBAR were published. (see following screen)

SCOTLAND READ DUNBAR’S POEMS

CLAN DUNBAR HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

Lament for the Makaris Quhen he was Sek To The City Of London I that in heill wes and gladnes, 1 London, thou art of town{.e}s A per se. 2 Am trublit now with gret seiknes, 2 Soveraign of cities, semeliest in sight, 3 And feblit with infermite; 3 Of high renoun, riches, and royaltie; 4 Timor mortis conturbat me. 4 Of lordis, barons, and many goodly knyght; 5 Our plesance heir is all vane glory, 5 Of most delectable lusty ladies bright; 6 This fals warld is bot transitory, 6 Of famous prelatis in habitis clericall; 7 The flesche is brukle, the Fend is sle; 7 Of merchauntis full of substaunce and myght: 8 Timor mortis conturbat me. 8 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 9 The stait of man dois change and vary, 9 Gladdith anon, thou lusty Troy Novaunt, 10 Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary, 10 Citie that some tyme cleped was New Troy, 11 Now dansand mery, now like to dee; 11 In all the erth, imperiall as thou stant, 12 Timor mortis conturbat me. 12 Pryncesse of townes, of pleasure, and of joy, 13 No stait in erd heir standis sickir; 13 A richer restith under no Christen roy; 14 As with the wynd wavis the wickir, 14 For manly power, with craftis naturall, 15 Wavis this warldis vanite. 15 Fourmeth none fairer sith the flode of Noy: 16 Timor mortis conturbat me. 16 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 17 On to the ded gois all estatis, 17 Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie, 18 Princis, prelotis, and potestatis, 18 Most myghty carbuncle of vertue and valour; 19 Baith riche and pur of al degre; 19 Strong Troy in vigour and in strenuytie; 20 Timor mortis conturbat me. 20 Of royall cities rose and geraflour; 2 He takis the knychtis in to feild, 21 Empresse of town{.e}s, exalt in honour; 22 Anarmit under helme and scheild; 22 In beawtie beryng the crone imperiall; 23 Victour he is at all mellie; 23 Swete paradise precelling in pleasure: 24 Timor mortis conturbat me. 24 London, thow art the floure of Cities all. 25 That strang unmercifull tyrand 25 Above all ryvers thy Ryver hath renowne, 26 Takis, on the moderis breist sowkand, 26 Whose beryall stremys, pleasaunt and preclare, 27 The bab full of benignite; 27 Under thy lusty wallys renneth down, 28 Timor mortis conturbat me. 28 Where many a swanne doth swymme with wyngis fare; 29 He takis the campion in the stour, 29 Where many a barge doth saile, and row with are, 30 The capitane closit in the tour, 30 Where many a ship doth rest with toppe-royall. 31 The lady in bour full of bewte; 31 O! towne of townes, patrone and not-compare: 32 Timor mortis conturbat me. 32 London, thou art the floure of Cities all. 33 He sparis no lord for his piscence, 33 Upon thy lusty Brigge of pylers white 34 Na clerk for his intelligence; 34 Been merchauntis full royall to behold; 35 His awfull strak may no man fle; 35 Upon thy stretis goth many a semely knyght 36 Timor mortis conturbat me. 36 In velvet gownes and cheyn{.e}s of fyne gold. 37 Art-magicianis, and astrologgis, 37 By Julyus Cesar thy Tour founded of old 38 Rethoris, logicianis, and theologgis, 38 May be the hous of Mars victoryall, 39 Thame helpis no conclusionis sle; 39 Whos artillary with tonge may not be told: 40 Timor mortis conturbat me. 40 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 4 In medicyne the most practicianis, 41 Strong be thy wallis that about the standis; 42 Lechis, surrigianis, and phisicianis, 42 Wise be the people that within the dwellis; 43 Thame self fra ded may not supple; 43 Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis; 44 Timor mortis conturbat me. 44 Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis; 45 I se that makaris amang the laif 45 Riche be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis; 46 Playis heir ther pageant, syne gois to graif; 46 Fair be thy wives, right lovesom, white and small; 47 Sparit is nocht ther faculte; 47 Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis: 48 Timor mortis conturbat me. 48 London, thow art the flour of Cities all. 49 He hes done petuously devour, 49 Thy famous Maire, by pryncely governaunce, 50 The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour, 50 With swerd of justice the rulith prudently. 51 The Monk of Bery, and Gower, all thre; 51 No Lord of Parys, Venyce, or Floraunce 52 Timor mortis conturbat me. 52 In dignytie or honoure goeth to hym nye. 53 The gude Syr Hew of Eglintoun, 53 He is exampler, lood{.e}-ster, and guye; 54 And eik Heryot, and Wyntoun, 54 Principall patrone and roose orygynalle, 55 He hes tane out of this cuntre; 55 Above all Maires as maister moost worthy: 56 Timor mortis conturbat me. 56 London, thou art the flour of Cities all. 57 That scorpion fell hes done infek 58 Maister Johne Clerk, and Jame Afflek, 59 Fra balat making and tragidie; 60 Timor mortis conturbat me. 6 Holland and Barbour he hes berevit; 62 Allace! that he nocht with us levit HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1837

May 8, Monday: The New England delegates to the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women that was to be held on Manhattan Island assembled in Providence for the overnight steamboat trip to a wharf at the Battery on Manhattan Island.

The steamboat had a Ladies’ Cabin with two tiers of berths, but there was a problem. One of the delegates from Rhode Island was a black woman and normally the steamboat companies did not allow black passengers inside the Gentlemen’s Cabin or the Ladies’ Cabin. At that time black passengers spent the night on the steamboat’s deck regardless of weather conditions, and if for instance a pregnant free black woman died of exposure, she died, that was all. However, in actual fact passengers were able to make their own rules. One delegate recorded later that

I was happy, in the early stages of this journey to have our feelings tested with regard to that bitter prejudice against colored which we have indiscriminately indulged, and to find it giving place to better feelings. Our colored companion slept near my side — she rode with us in the carriage — sat with us at the table of the public boarding-house — walked in company with us. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS This Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women may arguably have been the first significant racially integrated meeting in the United States of America, as well as merely the first public political meeting of women in the United States of America.22 The convention met in the district of New-York that is now referred to as Greenwich Village. Although, in the northern states, the black population was only one in fifty, at this convention the ratio was one in ten. In New York City, never a hotbed of miscegenation, abolitionist ministers were having their black parishioners sit in a segregated upper gallery humorously referred to by some white parishioners as “nigger heaven.”23 Maria W. Stewart, the 1st American woman to have lectured in public, attended, presumably unnoticed. When the colored ladies thoughtfully provided a box lunch for the assembly, one of the delegates commented

They are a race worth saving.

As a further expression of their solidarity, most of the delegates, except for some of the New York ladies, would decide to do without the divisive distinction between Miss and Mrs. The Commercial Advertiser would describe the “sweet lips” of these “oratoresses” who were depriving “the world of men of the high privilege of drinking from those rich rivers of rhetoric.” The key accomplishment of the convention would be to break the “True Womanhood” of female passivity and submission and acceptance by insisting that the True Woman, out of her native emotionality and unselfishness, would vigorously plead the cause of the oppressed, and would therefore be Anti-Slavery. –That this was not what it had been being portrayed to be, a man’s affair in which a woman was not to meddle. DUNBAR FAMILY

From George Templeton Strong’s New-York diary:

This affair of the Dry Dock Bank has gone better than I expected, but I fear it will prove the entering wedge to split up all Wall Street. The other banks are generally blamed for not sustaining it, and justly so. Only imagine that [Uncle Benjamin] should actually have come to such a situation as to be afraid of personal insult if he go into the street! Yet so it is. What can be more dreadful? I can scarcely realize it — as kind and good-hearted and benevolent a man as ever breathed, his character unimpeached and unimpeachable, yet obliged to secure his house from attack and afraid of showing himself. These wretched banks and credit systems and paper wealth; they have done all this.

22. TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN: THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTION OF AMERICAN WOMEN HELD IN NEW YORK CITY, MAY 9-12, 1837. Introduction by Dorothy Sterling. NY: The Feminist P at the City U of New York, 1993. 23. The exceedingly popular evangelist Charles Finney, for instance, put his foot down when a black choir and a white choir occupied the same platform at the same time at a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society — that was just too much race mixing. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Whig bankers in Massachusetts and New York obtained gold bullion from the Bank of England to bolster Boston and New York banks and thus prevented a major financial collapse in the United States. This did not prevent many of President Andrew Jackson’s depository banks from failing in the various states. The nation would recover very slowly from this disaster, although Massachusetts would be one of the earliest states to make a comeback because of its stringent policies and enforcements of currency and bond issuing, loan control, elimination of debtor imprisonment (which had previously been a major expense for the state government), increased licensing (a major source of revenue), and liquor control as a restriction of “causes of pauperism.” The Panic, aside from these fiscal and social improvements, resulted in prolonging the controversy over the Bank of the United States, a controversy which is referred to more often in the writings of Emerson than in those of Henry Thoreau.

May 9, Tuesday: Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult departed from Paris, heading generally in the direction of Italy.

1st day of the 1st national Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. Friend Abby Kelley, Friend Angelina Emily Grimké, Friend Lucretia Coffin Mott, Mary Parker, Mary Clark, the Balls, the Westons, the Childs, and Maria Weston Chapman attended, and Abby served on the committee to prepare the Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States. When a fund-raising issue arose, she would suggest that in order to increase their donations the ladies might cut their personal expenses. (Also among the seated delegates was Miss Anna Jane Dunbar of New-York.) DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS May 10, Wednesday: Following the collapse of the 2d Bank of the United States, a liquidity crisis ensued and the Panic of 1837 began when New-York banks suspended specie payment, precipitating a financial panic in which 618 US banks would fail and the result would be 7 years of depression. From George Templeton Strong’s New-York diary:

Extensive news in this morning’s paper. The banks (except three) have concluded to stop specie payment!!! Glory to the Old General! Glory to little Matty, second fiddler to the great Magician! Glory — ay, and double patent glory — to the experiment, the specie currency, and all the glorious humbugs who have inflicted them on us. Commerce and speculation here have been spreading of late like a card house, story after story and ramification after ramification till the building towered up to the sky and people rolled up their eyes in amazement, but at last one corner gave way and every card that dropped brought down a dozen with it, and sic transit gloria mundi!

2d day of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. The last resolution of the evening, offered before the delegates adjourned at 10 PM, caused significant debate about the rights and duties of women. The resolution, offered by Angelina Emily Grimké, was:

RESOLVED, That as certain rights and duties are common to all moral beings, the time has come for woman to move in that sphere which Providence has assigned her, and no longer remain satisfied in the circumscribed limits with which corrupt custom and a perverted application of Scripture have encircled her; therefore that it is the duty of woman, and the province of woman, to plead the cause of the oppressed in our land, and to do all that she can by her voice, and her pen, and her purse, and the influence of her example, to overthrow the horrible system of American slavery.

Among those who voted against this resolution, and asked to have their names recorded in the minutes as disapproving of some parts of it, there were 8 Mrs’s, 3 Miss’s, and one delegate who did not choose to use a title. One of the 12 dissenters, interestingly, was Miss Anna Jane Dunbar of New-York. DUNBAR FAMILY

May 11, Thursday: Boston banks followed the New-York banks in suspending the issuance of specie payment, precipitating a financial panic in the US and 7 years of depression.

3d day of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. DUNBAR FAMILY

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 11th of 5M 1837 / Our Meeting today was small, but very solid & quiet — Father had a short but very solid offering. — I was thankful to feel & in measure be made sensible that there is a place of quite & safety to the mind amid all the trial & tumult & terror which we hear by the Steam Boat this Morning is HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS now prevailing in the City of New York on account of Money matters The accounts are that So great is the agitation which now prevails on account of the Banks stoping species payments that a patrole is called out who keep guards with Arms Night & day. — This is an Awful state of things & the result greatly to be feared RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

May 12, Friday: The Liberator.

Last morning of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. A large proportion of the 33 women who, like Miss Anna Jane Dunbar of New-York, decided that they should list the title “Miss” or “Mrs.” with their names, it must be noted, were not members of the Religious Society of Friends. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1838

April 21, Saturday: John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, the son of Daniel Muir and Ann Gilrye Muir. The family occupied the top floor of a building which is still in existence and the father, Daniel Muir, ran his corn factoring business on the ground floor. Dunbar would be the home town of the Muir family until they would emigrate to the USA in 1849. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1839

The port of Dunbar on the east coast of Scotland was engaged in shipbuilding, sailcloth and cordage manufacturing, herring-curing and soap making. There were an iron foundry, a steam engine works and several breweries and distilleries. In this year a 2d harbor was being built to supplement the one that had been constructed during the reign of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, and this new harbor was named in honor of .

DUNBAR FAMILY

August 1, Thursday: Waldo Emerson reported that “Last night came to me a beautiful poem from Henry Thoreau, ‘Sympathy.’ The purest strain & the loftiest, I think, that has yet pealed from this unpoetic American forest.”

COMMENTARY: [I am going to include several pages of commentary here, because the above was the poem that would become the controversial “To a Gentle Boy.”]

There’ve been Gay Pride parades in which posters of Henry Thoreau have been proudly carried. The evidence that he was gay was that he wrote a poem to one of his students, the little brother of the girl to whom he proposed marriage, and from the circumstance that after she turned him down he never did marry. Let us go into this in order to see that it is a simpleminded and as wrong as the idea of long standing, that Thoreau had no sense of humor. This is going to be a bit complicated, so pay attention. William Sewell [Willem Séwel Amsterdammer] published THE HISTORY OF THE RISE, INCREASE AND PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS in English as a corrective to Gerard Croese’s HISTORY OF QUAKERISM. The records of the Salem library show that Nathaniel Hawthorne used their edition of this book for a week in 1828 and a month in 1829. The book recounted the activities of some of his ancestors, such as his great-great-great-grandfather William Hathorne (1607-1681) who sailed on the Arbella in 1630, settling in Dorchester in New England and then moving to Salem, who served at the rank of major in wars against the Americans, who became a magistrate and judge of the Puritans, and who had one Anne Coleman whipped out of the town of Salem for HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS being a Quaker:

...naked from the waist upward, and bound to the tail of a cart, is dragged through the Main-street at the pace of a brisk walk, while the constable follows with a whip of knotted cords. A strong-armed fellow is that constable; and each time that he flourishes his lash in the air, you see a frown wrinkling and twisting his brow, and, at the same instant, a smile upon his lips. He loves his business, faithful officer that he is, and puts his soul into every stroke, zealous to fulfill the injunction of Major Hawthorne’s warrant, in the spirit and to the letter. There came down a stroke that has drawn blood! Ten such stripes are to be given in Salem, ten in Boston, and ten in Dedham; and, with those thirty stripes of blood upon her, she is to be driven into the forest.... Heaven grant that, as the rain of so many years has wept upon it, time after time, and washed it all away, so there may have been a dew of mercy, to cleanse this cruel blood-stain out of the record of the persecutor’s life!

And such as William’s son John Hathorne (1641-1717), a chip off the old block, a colonel in the Massachusetts militia and a deputy to the General Court in Boston who was a magistrate during the Salem witch episode which featured one person being tortured to death and 19 hanged. Hawthorne was much stimulated by the blood curse that Sarah Good had placed on her executioners, “God will give you Blood to drink.” His tale “The Gentle Boy” of 1831 made reference to this history.

Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors; and let each successive generation thank him, not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of the ages.

This was Hawthorne in 1840, according to a portrait painter, Samuel Stillman Osgood:

“The Gentle Boy” was published anonymously in a gift annual of The Token magazine in 1831, and then republished under Hawthorne’s name as a part of TWICE-TOLD TALES in 1832 and 1837 after deletion of the detail that, in being attacked by a gang of vicious Puritan children, the gentle Quaker boy had been struck in “a tender part.” The book THE GENTLE BOY: A TWICE-TOLD TALE, when published in 1839, was dedicated to Sophia Amelia Peabody (to become Sophia Peabody Hawthorne), some of whose ancestors are also in Sewel’s history, and included a drawing by her. Printing was interrupted briefly to make the boy’s countenance more gentle in the engraved version of the drawing. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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In 1842 Nathaniel and Sophia Peabody got married and moved to Concord, where Thoreau had just prepared for them a large garden. Although Hawthorne was vague on the spelling of Thoreau’s name, and his bride thought Thoreau repulsively ugly, Thoreau visited them several times in the Old Manse where Waldo Emerson had penned “Nature,” and for $7.00 sold them the boat he and his brother had used on their famous trip – so that they could row out and pluck pond lilies. Although Thoreau read little fiction, he could not have been unaware of their newly republished “Gentle Boy” story, at least by its title.

With this background, we can now consider the gay speculation about the poem Thoreau wrote to his pupil Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr., “Once there was a gentle boy.” Is this poem’s emphasis on the nonmasculine characteristics of a young boy to be interpreted as evidence of a homoerotic longing on Thoreau’s part, or, since the age of eleven is not the age of sexual maturity, interpreted as evidence of an incipient pederasty? No, because the poem’s use of “gentle boy” might well have been a deliberate tie-in to the Hawthorne story. We must ask, what might have been the motivation for calling this particular story to Edmund’s attention? There are several reasons having nothing to do with sexuality or with Thoreau’s personal needs. The nonviolent Quaker boy in the story is treated with utter viciousness by a gang of local Puritan children, and in particular by one boy whom he had nursed with kindness and attention during an illness. Was Edmund, a visitor in Concord, having trouble being accepted by some of the local children in Thoreau’s school? This 24 historian William Sewell referred to by Hawthorne, was he one of Edmund’s ancestors? Were some of the people described in that history Sewall ancestors, as some were Ha(w)thorne ancestors and some Peabody ancestors? If so, the Thoreau family would surely have been aware of it, since they had known intimately at least three generations of the Sewall family starting with Mrs. Joseph Ward, Cynthia Thoreau’s star boarder, the widow of a colonel in the American revolutionary army, the mother of Caroline Ward who in turn was the mother of Ellen Devereux Sewall and Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr.

Hawthorne’s story is of a boy in an adoptive family, a “little quiet, lovely boy” who is heartsick for his parents. In the tale, in the face of the most extreme religious persecution of Friends by Puritans, the boy’s birth mother had violated her “duties of the present life” by “fixing her attention wholly on” her future life: she left her child with this Puritan family to venture on a “mistaken errand” of “unbridled fanaticism.” That is, after being whipped out of town by the Puritans, she followed a spirit leading to become a traveling Friend. At the end, the boy’s mother returns to him.

Hawthorne’s tale involves the hanging of an innocent person. Would this have been of interest to Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr.? Yes, for a Sewall was involved in the hanging of the nineteen witches in Salem on September 22, 1692. This Samuel Sewall was a lifelong bigot (he once refused to sell a plot of land because the bidders wanted to build a church, and they were Protestants but not of his own denomination) but he was worse than a bigot: not only did he hang women for being in league with the devil, he helped condemn and hang one of his Harvard peers, the Reverend George Burrough –whom he had once heard preach on the Sermon on the Mount– for being in league with the devil. It was an interesting period, a period in which one could lose control of oneself and cry out during the Puritan service, and be suspected of having acquired a taint of Quakerism, and be placed in great personal danger. And that was an interesting day, August 16, 1692: an arresting officer for the court, one John Willard, was “cried out upon” for doubting the guilt of the accused,

24. According to Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges’s 1988 A DICTIONARY OF SURNAMES (Oxford UP), “Sewall” is a variant of “Sewell,” which can be from the Old English “Sigeweald,” meaning government by right of conquest, or “Sœ¯weald” [œ with ¯ over it], meaning rule over the sea – an appropriate name for a family that included some wealthy shipbuilders in Maine! The same dictionary of surnames denies Thoreau’s derivation of his name from Thor, the god of lightning, giving “Thoreau,” “Thoret,” “Thoré,” and “Thorez” as variants of “Thorel,” a nickname for a strong or violent individual (like Uncle “J.C.” Charles Jones Dunbar!), from the Old French “t(h)or(el)” meaning bull. However, this dictionary allows that the name may also have originated in a diminutive of an aphetic short form of the given name “Maturin,” or that it may be from a medieval given name which was an aphetic short form of various names such as “Victor” and “Salvador” (“Salvador” is equivalent to the Hebrew “Yehoshua”), or that it may be related to an Italian/Spanish nickname for a lusty person, or metonymic occupational name for a tender of bulls: “Toro!” (Now going to a bullfight in Spain and rooting for the bull, something I had the opportunity to do when I was a teenager, couldn’t be the same for me.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS and was hanged beside the Reverend Burrough. We find this in Sewall’s diary:

Mr. Burrough by his Speech, Prayer, protestation of his Innocence, did much move unthinking persons, which occasions their speaking hardly concerning his being executed.

A few years later, after some bad events in his family, Samuel suffered pangs of conscience: a public fast was declared for January 14, 1697 and he stood in Old South Church in Boston while the minister read a statement that the Sewall family had been cursed of God because of the trials, and that he took “the Blame and shame” upon himself. The twelve jurors were in attendance to acknowledge that they had “unwittingly and unwillingly” brought “upon ourselves and this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood.”

This Puritan’s son, the Reverend Joseph Sewall, was the father of Samuel Sewall, who was the father of Samuel Sewall, Jr., who was the father of the Reverend Edmund Quincy Sewall, Sr., who was of course Master Edmund Quincy Sewall, Jr.’s father. It is an interesting question, how a teacher can help a young man like this venture into his manhood, after the decency of manliness has been utterly destroyed as an option for him in such a manner, by the indecency of a male ancestor. I would suggest that teacher Thoreau’s tactic – to emphasize to this lad Edmund the nominally feminine virtue of gentleness by providing him with a poem into which to grow – constitutes a legitimate and even profound maneuver on extremely difficult terrain. I would suggest, in addition, that those who seek to appropriate Thoreau by interpreting this “Once there was a gentle boy” poem as evidence of an unconscious erotic impulse are, in effect, debasing him. Debasing him not by accusing him of homosexuality – for it is not base to be gay – but by interpreting a complex and difficult situation in a manner that is merely simpleminded and doctrinaire. I want to emphasize the open-endedness of the questions involved: was Edmund, the new boy in town, having the sort of trouble with his peers that would have caused him to be in the situation of the gentle boy in the Hawthorne tale – ganged up against, beaten as a sissy? The American Antiquarian Society in Worcester has preserved pages of Edmund’s Concord journal that may contain an answer. And what exactly was the perception of a blood guilt and an inherited shame among the Sewels and Sewells and Seawells and Sewalls? We should be led by this story, not into considerations of eroticism among 19th-Century virgins (which would be a mere shallow –not demeaning, surely, but surely both appropriative and dismissive– sidetrack) but into a full consideration of how a compassionate and concerned teacher like Henry Thoreau can help a young male pupil grow to maturity even in a situation in which the option “manhood” has for this pupil been virtually eliminated – by the foul deed and foul mind of a Samuel Sewall, his blood ancestor.

We need to begin to take into account various of the cultural influences upon Thoreau which we have not previously been considering due to the fact that few people read the dead languages anymore. There’s quite a body of ancient evidence to indicate that the poet Virgil may well have been by inclination a pederast, and the scholar S. Lilja confirms that Virgil’s apparent sexual persona does inform a great deal of his poetry, including of course his AENEID. If one refers to John F. Makowski’s “Nisus and Euryalus: a Platonic Relationship,” in HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Classical Journal (1985) 1-15, and also to J. Griffin’s LATIN POETS AND ROMAN LIFE, one finds that: • In Virgil’s autobiographical poetry of the Catalepton, poems 5 and 7, in which he sings of Sextus his cura curarum and of the boy aptly named Pothos, poems for the authenticity of which Buechler and Richmond indicate that there is now strong consensus, Thoreau could have read of a sexuality seems to have been grounded in life experience rather than merely to have been following in the literary convention we now term “posing as sodomites.” • In Donatus’s life of Virgil, Thoreau could have read: “(sc. Vergilius) libidinis in pueros pronioris, quorum maxime dilexit Cebetem et Alexandrum, quem secunda bucolicorum ecloga Alexim appellat, donatum sibi ab Asinio Pollione, utrumque non ineruditum, Cebetem vero et poetam.” Donatus goes on to say that Virgil, invited by a friend to partake of a heterosexual liaison, “verum pertinacissime recusasse.” • Apuleius Apologia 10 pretty much agrees with the picture presented to Thoreau by Donatus. • By the time of Martial a joking tradition was in place that the Muse behind Virgil’s prodigious poetic output was his Alexis, his love slave, given to him (note the divergence from Servius) by Maecenas rather than by Pollio. See epigrams 5.6, 6.68, 7.29, 8.56, 8.73 in which he attributes the sad state of contemporary poetry to the failure of patrons to provide poets with beautiful boys a la Maecenas and Virgil. This material was available to Thoreau. • Juvenal echoes this tradition in Satire 7.69. • In Philargyrius, Thoreau could have read: “Alexim dicunt Alexandrum, qui fuit servus Asinii Pollionis, quem Vergilius, rogatus ad prandium cum vidisset in ministerio omnium pulcherrimum, dilexit eumque dono accepit. Caesarem quidam acceperunt, formosum in operibus et gloria. alii puerum Caesaris, quem si laudasset, gratem rem Caesari fecisset. nam Vergilius dicitur in pueros habuisse amorem: nec enim turpiter eum diligebat. alii Corydona, Asinii Pollionis puerum adamatum a Vergilio ferunt, eumque a domino datum. . .” • What did Servius mean to say to Thoreau, and to us, when he offered that Virgil had not loved boys turpiter (disgracefully)? Possibly Servius meant that Virgil had been able to do so without loss of personal dignity (the courting of the beloved, whether woman or boy, could involve erotic service that was seen as beneath the dignity of a free man), the other that he did so without ever achieving, or perhaps even pursuing, physical consummation (which would have taken the form of sodomizing the lad if he was willing to submit, but Dover’s GREEK HOMOSEXUALITY --which seems to be in large part valid for Roman society as well-- shows that nice boys were supposed to say no in thunder and that men who insisted upon using their penises might have to settle for intercrural satisfaction). We should probably take into account as well the poetry of a man who died in the same year as Virgil, Albius Tibullus, from whom Thoreau would quote (or would suppose he was quoting) in WALDEN. What is conventionally known as “Book 1” of Tibullus contains poems on his beloved Delia but also several on a beloved boy named Marathus (4, 8, 9); these can offer some insight into the process of courting a boy. Another possibility, of course, is simply that Virgil’s love had nothing cruel or abusive about it, but perhaps the most plausible explanation for judging a liaison as turpis is the man’s loss of dignity in becoming enslaved to the object of his desire, his loss of face. Two examples that come to mind from Virgil’s own time are Anthony’s passion for Cleopatra and Maecenas’s scandalous affair with the ballet-dancer Bathyllus. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Horsfall’s COMPANION TO THE STUDY OF VIRGIL summarizes the “evidence” such as it is. Although he demonstrates that there is not one detail in the ancient LIVES OF VIRGIL that can be taken at face value, the persistent availability of such materials about the life of Virgil has been such as to make this a moot point. Whether true or false it has obviously had an influence, and may well have had an influence of some sort on Thoreau. Those scholars could all be found to have been mistaken, and yet we will still need to deal with the manner in which Virgil was being received during the first half of the 19th Century, and I am not certain that we have done that, and of course it is important, in dealing with a situation such as Thoreau’s temporary involvement with the gentle young Sewall boy, that we most carefully do that. In none of these texts, nor in Servius, would Thoreau have been able to find any suggestion of a condemnation of what Virgil was projecting as being his proclivities. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS William Sewell. THE HISTORY OF THE RISE, INCREASE AND PROGRESS, OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE CALLED QUAKERS; WITH SEVERAL REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES INTERMIXED, WRITTEN ORIGINALLY IN LOW-DUTCH, AND ALſO TRANſLATED INTO ENGLISH, BY WILLIAM SEWEL. THE THIRD EDITION, CORRECTED. The title varies slightly from edition to edition (1722, 1725, 1728, 1774, 1776, 1811, 1844), for instance ...WITH SEVERAL REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES INTERMIXED, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR, COMPILED FROM VAR IO US SOURCES, and WRITTEN ORIGINALLY IN LOW DUTCH, AND TRANSLATED BY HIMSELF INTO ENGLISH, Baker & Crane, No. 158 Pearl-Street, New-York. The author’s name was, according to Alexander Chalmers’s GENERAL BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY of 1812-1817, Volume 27, page 361, a recognized variant of “Sewell”: there was a Henry Sewall who spelled his name also as Sewell and Seawell, and there was a loyalist “Sewall” who changed the family name to “Sewell” in London in order to confuse the American authorities and better protect his children in America –and his American properties– after being proscribed. Among recorded immigrants, the “United States Index to Records of Aliens’ Declarations” show a proportion of 1 Sewel, 11 Sewalls, and 30 Sewells. Henry Thoreau first encountered this book in this 1774 3d edition prepared and sold by Isaac Collins of Burlington, New-Jersey:

WM. SEWEL’S 3D ED., VOL. I WM. SEWEL’S 3D ED., VOL. II HDT WHAT? INDEX

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FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.

The Dunbars “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1841

April 21, Wednesday: Bronson Alcott wrote a short note to Christopher A. Greene in Providence, Rhode Island while sending him a manuscript copy of ORPHIC SAYINGS; FOR THE PLAIN SPEAKER...... (seven leaves written on both sides, the verso of the final leaf addressed in the author’s hand).

At this point it had been settled that the Alcotts would stay where they were and it would be Henry Thoreau who would instead serve the Emerson family as “handyman.”

In Dunbar, Scotland, John Muir turned 3 years of age and was placed in primary schooling. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1843

July 7, Saturday: The Liberator.

Henry Thoreau wrote from Staten Island to Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau. To: Cynthia Thoreau From: HDT Date: 7 July 1843

Staten Island July 7th

Dear Mother,

I was very glad to get your letter and papers. Tell Father that circumstantial letters make very substantial reading, at any rate. I like to know even how the sun shines and garden grows with you. I did not get my money in Boston and probably shall not at all.— Tell Sophia that I have pressed some blossoms of the tulip tree for her. They look somewhat like white lilies. The magnolia too is in blossom here. Pray have you the Sev- enteen year locust in Concord? The air here is filled with their din. They come out of the ground at first in an imperfect state, and crawling up the shrubs and plants, the perfect insect burst out through the back. They are doing great dam- age to the fruit and forest trees. The latter are covered with dead twigs which in the distance look like the blossoms of the chestnut. They bore every twig of last year’s grow thin order to deposit their eggs in it. In a few weeks the eggs will be hatched, and the worms fall to the ground and enter it – and in 1860 make their appearance again. I conversed about their coming this season be- fore they arrived. They do no injury to the leaves, but beside boring the twigs – suck their sap for sustenance. Their din is heard by those who sail along the shore – from the distant woods. Phar-r-r-aoh – Pha-r-r-aoh. They are depart- ing now. Dogs, cats and chickens subsist mainly upon them in some places. I have not been to N.Y. for more than three weeks.— I have had an interesting letter from Mr Lane, describing their new prospects.— My pupil and I are get- ting on apace, He is remarkably well advanced in Latin and is well advancing. Your letter has just arrived. I was not aware that it was so long since I wrote home; I only knew that I had sent five or six letters to the town. It is very re- freshing to hear from you – though it is not all good news— But I trust that Stearns Wheeler is not dead— I should be slow to believe it. He was made to work very well in this world. There need be no tragedy in his death. The demon which is said to haunt the Jones family – hovering over their eye lids with wings steeped in juice of poppies – has commenced another campaign against me. I am “clear Jones” in this respect at least. But he finds little en- couragement in my atmosphere I assure you – for I do not once fairly lose my- self – except in those hours of truce allotted to rest by immemorial custom. However, this skirmishing interferes sadly with my literary projects – and I am apt to think it a good day’s work if I maintain a soldier’s eye till night-fall. Very HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS well it does not matter much in what wars we serve – whether in the Highlands or the Lowlands— Everywhere we get soldiers’s pay still. Give my love to Aunt Louisa – whose benignant face I sometimes see right in the wall – as naturally and necessarily shining on my path as some star – of unaccountably greater age and higher orbit than myself. Let it be inquired by her of George Minott – as from me – for she sees him – If he has seen any pi- geons yet – and tell him there are plenty of Jack-snipes here.— As for William P. the “worthy young man” – as I live, my eyes have not fallen on him yet. I have not had the influenza – though here are its head-quarters – unless my first week’s cold was it. Tell Helen I shall write to her soon. I have heard Lucretia Motte— This is badly written – but the worse the writing the sooner you get it this time – from Yr Affectionate Son H. D. T.

Thoreau was being attacked by the family tendency to narcolepsy, so strongly present in his uncle Charles Jones Dunbar that he described in WALDEN how once his uncle went to sleep while shaving himself with a straight razor, and had to have something to do of a Sunday such as rubbing the sprouts off stored potatoes to HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS keep from going to sleep:

WALDEN: Breed’s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert, that winter that I labored FIRE with a lethargy, –which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar PEOPLE OF Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers’ collection of English WALDEN poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods, –we who had run to fires before,– barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. “It’s Baker’s barn,” cried one. “It is the Codman Place,” affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted “Concord to the rescue!” Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure, and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through speaking trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world has witness, including Bascom’s shop, and, between ourselves we thought that, were we there in season with our “tub”, and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal one into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief, –returned to sleep and Gondibert. But as for Gondibert, I would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul’s powder, –“but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder.”

INSURANCE NARCOLEPSY ALEXANDER CHALMERS BASCOM & COLE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

The demon which is said to haunt the Jones family, hovering over their eyelids with wings steeped in juice of poppies, has commenced another campaign against me. I am “clear Jones” in this respect at least.

Thoreau was “clear Jones” in one respect at least ...

According to Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Uncle Charles Jones Dunbar had been in the practice of mimicking a currently popular ventriloquist, magician, and juggler named Potter. In corroboration of this he quoted a snippet from Thoreau’s journal:

Ever since I knew him he could swallow his nose. One of his tricks was to swallow the knives and forks and some of the plates at a tavern table, and offer to give them up if the landlord would charge nothing for his meal. He could do anything with cards, yet did not gamble. Uncle Charles should have been in Concord in 1843, when Daniel Webster was there. What a whetter-up of his memory that event would have been! …

March 28, 1856: Uncle Charles buried at Haverhill. He was born in February, 1780, the winter of the Great Snow, and he died in the winter of another great snow, —a life bounded by great snows. … DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

Consider WALDEN’s “If they had not been overcome with drowsiness …”:

WALDEN: That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier, more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, “All intelligences awake with the morning.” Poetry and art, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

NARCOLEPSY

While Thoreau was living on Staten Island and putting up with the stodgy William Emersons in 1843 the “clear Jones” in him had become so drowsy, or narcoleptic, that in his efforts to counteract this he even tried making spare change by selling magazine subscriptions door to door.

PHILIP CAFARO ON AWAKENING IN WALDEN25

PAGES 19-21: WALDEN anchors its ethical discussions in powerful, richly extended metaphors: morality as economy, morality as cultivation, morality as flourishing. Just as we must pay particular attention to first principles and initial arguments in works of academic philosophy, so here we must attend to these key orienting metaphors. One of the most important equates morality with awakening. Two calls to wakefulness bracket the text of WALDEN: the epigraph’s crowing of the cock and the text’s final sentences: “There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” In between, Thoreau returns to the theme often, asking us, for example, to awaken to the fact that we have choices in life, or describing his literary labors and itinerant naturalizing in terms of alert wakefulness. The metaphor’s most extended use occurs midway through WALDEN’s second chapter, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.” “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself,” Thoreau begins, once again emphasizing our free choice of whether or not to engage life’s opportunities. “I have been as HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did.” The sacrament’s power comes from its bodily immediacy — what could be more immediate than a plunge, first thing in the morning, into a clear, cold pond? — and its ability to thrust us into the state of excitement and awareness it celebrates. If you doubt that wakefulness is a matter of degree, such a plunge will instantly dispel these worries! The metaphor’s power comes from how literally Thoreau takes it, here at the start of the discussion, and from the diverse ways it transcends that literal meaning, in what follows. The passage continues: “The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.” Now Thoreau begins to speak metaphorically, yet the statement also seems literally true to experience. Waking from a full night’s sleep, early, before the neighbors begin bustling about, we may feel a freshness within and without, a hopefulness and sense of possibility that even the best days, as they fill up with details, somehow obscure. Morning is a natural beginning; making the effort to wake with the world, at dawn, emphasizes this. Then again, how we will experience our mornings remains to some extent open, no matter when we arise. We may all have to get up eventually, to some degree, but the spirit in which we do so can make all the difference. “Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within ... to a higher life than we fell asleep from.” Hope is the key to true awakening: hope, anchored in feelings of excitement and in the belief that we can live better lives than we ever have before. “We must learn to reawaken and keep 25. Philip Cafaro. THOREAU’S LIVING ETHICS: WALDEN AND THE PURSUIT OF VIRTUE. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2004 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” Thoreau’s admonition speaks directly to anyone who has ever unwillingly dragged himself or herself out of bed to the shrilling of an alarm clock. But I think that to fully appreciate “awakening” as a metaphor for personal renewal, you need to have watched a sunrise recently and felt the radiance on your face, the sense of promise warming your bones. We must anchor our metaphors in personal experience. The more we do so, the truer they will prove themselves, if indeed they are true. Just as the metaphor of “awakening” allows us to descend more fully into our experience, it points to its transcendence: to an ability to look beyond experience, hopefully. The passage continues: “To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.” To call moral reform, the improvement of character, an effort to throw off sleep emphasizes yet again that this opportunity is widely available; in a sense, it is as easy as waking up. It isn’t for lack of some esoteric knowledge that we fail to live better lives, but for lack of effort. But Thoreau’s “moral reform” is quite different from the common conception, in his day or ours. It is personal, not social; it does not ask for justice toward others, but that we be just toward ourselves and develop our highest faculties. “The millions are awake enough for physical labor,” Thoreau continues, “but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life.” If that is so, we have all of us – including the author of WALDEN– mostly been sleepwalking through life. “I have never yet met a man who was quite awake,” Thoreau asserts. “How could I have looked him in the face?” The power of the metaphor, I think, comes from its juxtaposition of the ease and the difficulty of waking up. If we could continue after our dip in the pond, piling sacrament upon sacrament, and be fully alive, truly grateful, completely aware, for just one day — what a day it would be! And, the metaphor suggests, we might simply wake up and see the right path to all this, as easily as we wake up and see the world waking up outside our window. For these are the great miracles, of course: the living, changing, lovely world; our ability to see and understand and appreciate it. The goal seems so near! To really think, really create, really live, means to be present, the way we are when we plunge into a pond and WAKE UP. Yet we continue to slumber. Again, the power of the metaphor comes from its juxtaposition of incremental and heroic striving, and Thoreau’s blurring of the line between them. It is as if, like some con man or “traveling patterer,” he and his metaphor have signed us up to purchase something that we are not sure we want, despite its obvious goodness, despite lacking any clear reason to remain suspicious. “Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier every successive day of his life, until he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise?” Yet we prefer endurance to excellence. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1844

April: It was likely during this month that Waldo Emerson lectured at the lyceum in Billerica. He would receive $8. THE LIST OF LECTURES

When Isaac Hecker arrived in Concord, Waldo Emerson suggested that the schoolmaster George Partridge Bradford tutor him in classic languages, and Bradford agreed to do this during his noon hours of freedom. Bradford and Hecker went off to find Hecker a rooming house, and the first house they found asked too much, $75.00 per year, but then they chanced on Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau and found that at the Thoreau rooming house Hecker would have to pay only $0.75 per week, light included — although Cynthia stipulated that if he wanted to use the fireplace in his room, Hecker would have to purchase his own firewood. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1845

April 21, Monday: John Muir turned 7 years of age and entered the Dunbar Grammar School, where he would be instructed in Latin, French, English, mathematics, and geography. In his school reader he would appreciate stories about natural history, and he would become especially fascinated by America’s fauna as described by John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson.

VIVIPAROUS QUADRUPEDS BIRDS OF AMERICA HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1847

May 18, Tuesday: Elijah Dunbar died in Keene, New Hampshire. He was survived by two of his six children. DUNBAR FAMILY

In England on this day Thomas Carlyle was writing to Waldo Emerson, saying that about a week before he had received a visit from one of his correspondent’s Concord neighbors, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, who was “a solid, sensible, effectual-looking man.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1849

January 15, Monday: In downtown Boston –where everything that happens of course happens for the greater glory of God– Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw lectured Washington Goode for an hour and a half on the habits of “intemperance” which he had had, the “ungodly” associates which he had had, the “dens of crime” which he had frequented, etc., informed him that having led such a life there was simply “no hope” that the governor of the state might reduce his sentence. The lecture probably was just what Seaman Goode needed. The judge then consigned him to be hanged by the neck, on May 25, Friday, 1849 (this seems to have been a traditional day upon which to conduct public hangings), until he was dead.26 The opponents of the death penalty, to wit, the Standing Committee of the Massachusetts Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, would have a little more than four months to mobilize public opinion to bring pressure to bear on Governor George Nixon Briggs: Why Sir, even the boys, and they are worth saving, for we have nothing else to make men, and even Governors of, are now saying in our streets, “it is only a nigger.” During those four months 24,440 signatures would be collected, petitioning the Governor Briggs to commute Seaman Goode’s sentence, from death by hanging to life in prison without any possibility of parole. For instance, Friend Joseph Ricketson, Friend Daniel Ricketson’s brother who, if I mistake not, was a birthright Quaker in good standing with his Monthly Meeting, reported that: I have exerted myself very much for the last month in behalf of Washington Goode; there were several petitions here and we obtained 746 signatures. In addition to the 24,440 signatures mentioned, there was one petition, from Woburn, Massachusetts, bearing a total of nine signatures, which demanded that Governor Briggs remain steadfast in the plan of “exicution.”

An article would appear in the Boston Republican, pointing up the fact that in France the guillotine had been adopted, after consultation with medical men, as the least painful mode of execution, and that since the last hanging in Boston, “the Ether discovery has taken place.” The question now arises, how shall the hanging be performed here in Boston.... Shall not the convict share also the advantage of this benign discovery? He is to be hanged by the neck. Shall not this be done with the least possible pain? If we follow the spirit of the law, there would seem to be no doubt that it must be done with the least possible pain. And it seems equally clear that it is within the discretion of the Sheriff, to permit any form of alleviating the pain, which is consistent with the one thing imposed upon him by the law; namely, the hanging of Goode, by the neck, until he is dead. We will not undertake to determine, whether Humanity does not require, that the convict, if he chooses, shall be allowed the benefit of ETHER. We content ourselves with saying that it is clearly within the discretion of the Sheriff to permit the pains of the convict to be thus alleviated.

26. In fact, Boston had not hanged anyone for simple homicide since 1826, almost a quarter of a century before, and there was another prisoner, Augustus Dutee, whose sentence to be hanged was being commuted during this period to life in prison — but then, we may presume that Augustus Dutee was a white man, not only because his sentence was commuted but also because the documents do not comment on his race as they would most assuredly have commented had he been anything other than white. In addition to Dutee, seven other murderers were then serving life in Massachusetts prison after having had their sentences to be hanged commuted by the state governor. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

The petition to commute the sentence of seaman Goode to life in prison without opportunity for parole that was being circulated and sponsored in Concord (either by Anna Maria Whiting, one of the town’s leading abolitionists, or by Caroline Hoar, the wife of Rockwood Hoar) is still in existence and bears, on the men’s side of the sheet, the signature of Henry Thoreau as second in that column. It bears, on the women’s side of the sheet, the signature of his younger sister, Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau, as 5th in that column, followed in immediate succession by the signature of his mother, Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, the signature of his elder sister, Helen Louisa Thoreau, the signature of his aunt Louisa Dunbar, and the signature of his Aunt Jane Thoreau. The signature of his father John Thoreau, Sr., however, appears nowhere on this petition. Why not? Thoreau’s father was 62 years old at this point and still very actively engaged in his home business. Is one to suppose that he, quite alone in his home, wanted Seaman Goode to dance on air?

DUNBAR FAMILY

The full text of that petition, as it came to be circulated in the Prisoner’s Friend, had been as follows: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, solemnly protest against the intended execution of Washington Goode, as a crime in which we would under no circumstances participate, which we would prevent, if possible, and in the guilt of which we will not, by the seeming assent of silence, suffer ourselves to be implicated. We believe the execution of this man will involve all who are instrumental in it in the crime of murder — of the murder in cold blood of a helpless fellow being. The arguments by which executions are generally defended are wholly wanted here. The prisoner is not one who in spite of good instruction and example, for purposes of avarice, revenge or lust, deliberately planned the murder of a fellow-being. The intended victim of law was a man of misfortune from birth, made by his social position, and still more by the color which God gave him, the victim of neglect, of oppression, of prejudice, of all the evils inflicted upon humanity by man. If in a paroxysm of drunken rage, he killed his opponent, (and this is the utmost alleged against him,) his case comes far short of premeditated murder. But even this fact is extremely doubtful. It is supported only by the most suspicious testimony, and such as would not have weighed with any jury to touch the life of a white man. And since the trial, facts have come to light materially lessening the credibility of the evidence which led to conviction. The glaring unfairness of his mode of trial is of itself sufficient ground for this protest. The maxim which gives to the accused a trial by his peers was essentially violated. In a community where sympathy with a colored man is a rare and unpopular sentiment, the prisoner should have been tried by a jury composed partly, at least, of his own race. This violation of the principles of equal justice demands our solemn protest. We claim also that the petition of more than 20,000 of our fellow- citizens to have this man’s life spared, demands respect. Such a number of voluntary petitioners, all upon one side, indicates the will of the sovereign people of the State, that the penalty should be commuted. Our respect for the right of the people to a voice and a just influence in the administration of public justice, also demands this solemn protest against the legal murder of Washington Goode. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

February: The Roman Republic was declared.

The Revolution of 1848 brought about the abdication of Louis Philippe in Paris.

The Muir family emigrated from Dunbar, Scotland via Glasgow to New York, the cross-Atlantic voyage taking six weeks by sailing ship, then traveled on via the Great Lakes and wagon to Fountain Lake in Buffalo Township, Marquette County, Wisconsin.

April 21, Saturday: En route with his parents and brothers and sisters from Dunbar, Scotland to Fountain Lake in the Wisconsin Territory, John Muir turned 11 years of age.

The Dunbars “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1850

May 1, Wednesday: Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar of Haverhill summoned Henry Thoreau to divide a tract of land in Haverhill into house lots for the heirs of a Nehemiah Emmerson:

You probably think ere this I have forgotten to [a]nswer your [l]etter but it is [not so]. I have waited untill now that I might send some definite Word about that Job I spoke of— You will recollect I told you one of the owners [l]ived in Cincinate. He has come on [and] wishes to have the farm immediately [s]urveyed and [l]aid into house [l]ots there is some twenty acres of it so you see it is quite a Job and there will be probably some [small] Jobs. Mr Emmerson will wait untill you come which must by as soon as Thursday[.] I hope it will be so you can come as I have some Jobs to do on the [l]ots as soon as laid out & I think we both can make a good [li]ving at it[.] [L]et me [s]ee you if possible — if not drop a line that we may not be in suspence.— [A]ll well as usual[.] Give my best Respect to all and say to them we should be happy to see them at Haverhill[.]

DUNBAR FAMILY

Thoreau would be traveling to Haverhill several times during this month, to complete this survey.

View Henry Thoreau’s personal working drafts of his surveys courtesy of AT&T and the Concord Free Public Library: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/Thoreau_Surveys.htm

(The official copy of this survey of course had become the property of the person or persons who had hired this Concord town surveyor to do their surveying work during the 19th Century. Such materials have yet to be recovered.)

View this particular personal working draft of a survey in fine detail: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/30.htm

September 17, Tuesday: To put down unrest between himself and the landed classes, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm II of Hesse requested military aid from the German Confederation.

In the national census, the household of Nehemiah Ball in Concord amounted to Nehemiah, age 59, wife Mary, and children Mary (and husband), Caroline, Maria, Angelina, Ephraim, Elizabeth, and Nehemiah.

Assistant Marshall W.W. Wilde of the 1850 US Census inventoried the Thoreau household as consisting (for government purposes) of: • John Thoreau, 63-year-old male • Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau, 63-year-old female • Henry David Thoreau, 33-year-old male • Sophia E. Thoreau, 31-year-old female • Jane Thoreau, 64-year-old female • Maria Thoreau, 53-year-old female • Margaret Doland, 18-year-old female HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS • Catherine Rioden, 13-year-old female

Catherine was listed as born in Ireland, the rest in Massachusetts. Presumably the name should have been listed as Riorden rather than Rioden. The head of the Thoreau family was listed as pencil maker and no occupations were indicated for the others. Presumably the two younger females were helping maintain the boardinghouse. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1854

September 16, Saturday: Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau and Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau returned from Wachusett.

In the afternoon Thoreau went to Fringed Gentian Meadow over the Assabet River and to Dugan Desert (Gleason 39/H4), where he found the mud turtle’s eggs all hatched. Tortoise Eggs Review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS under the heading “News” in the Portland ME Transcript, 179:3.

Thoreau in his recently published work “Walden” thus hits off the popular eagerness for news:— [Reprints “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” pages 93.24-94.2.]

The book was also reviewed on the second page of the Rochester NY Daily American.

Joshua Abraham Norton appeared in the office of San Francisco Call attired in a comic-opera uniform, with a document in hand that proclaimed him to be the Emperor of the United States and the Protector of Mexico.27 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

27. Refer to ZANIES: THE WORLD’S GREATEST ECCENTRICS by Jay Robert Nash (New Century Publishers, 1982, pages 267-74).

“Son — they say there isn’t any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1855

August 10, Friday: Calvin Wheeler Philleo’s novel TWICE MARRIED: A STORY OF CONNECTICUT LIFE (New York: Dix & Edwards, 10 Park Place; London: Sampson Low & Son) was reprinted from Putnam’s Monthly. TWICE MARRIED, A NOVEL

According to the Massachusetts census of 1855 the Thoreau household consisted of “John Thoreau, 69, M[ale]; Cynthia, 69, F[emale]; Henry D., 38, M[ale]; Sophia E., 34, F[emale]; Sophia Dunbar, 74, F[emale]; Louisa Dunbar, 69, F[emale].” Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau and Louisa Dunbar were listed as born in New Hampshire, all others in Massachusetts. The father was listed as “Manufacturer,” Henry Thoreau as “Gentleman,” and (of course) no occupations were listed for homemakers.28(The census taker for Concord

DUNBAR FAMILY

SOPHIA E. THOREAU was Sheriff Sam Staples.)

Aug.10. P.M. — To Nagog. Middle of huckleberrying. — (then no more entries until August 19th)

October 23, Tuesday: Anti-slavery residents of Kansas adopted a new Free State constitution at Topeka, outlawing slavery (no black people allowed). THE 2D GREAT AMERICAN DISUNION

Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar reported that, at the recent Cattle Show in Haverhill, his horse had drawn 5,286 pounds up the hill from Hale’s factory. DUNBAR FAMILY

According to Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Henry Thoreau’s Uncle Charles Jones Dunbar had been in the practice of mimicking a currently popular ventriloquist, magician, and juggler named Potter. In corroboration of this he quoted a snippet from Thoreau’s journal:

28. Volume 21 in the Massachusetts State Archives in Boston. The historian Lemuel Shattuck, the lawyer Moses Prichard, and the manufacturer William Monroe were also listed by census taker Sam Staples as gentlemen. Waldo Emerson was listed almost appropriately as “Writer of Books” and Ellery Channing almost appropriately as “Do Nothing” (see Friend Daniel Ricketson drawing made in 1856). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS People are talking about my uncle Charles. George Minott [a sort of cousin of the Thoreaus] tells how he heard Tilly Brown once asking him to show him a peculiar inside lock in wrestling.”Now, don’t hurt me, - don’t throw me hard.” He struck his antagonist inside his knees with his feet, and so deprived him of his legs. Edmund Hosmer remembers his tricks in the bar-room, shuffling cards, etc.; he could do anything with cards, yet he did not gamble. He would toss up his hat, twirling it over and over, and catch it on his head invariably. He once wanted to live at Hosmer’s, but the latter was afraid of him. “Can’t we study up something?” he asked. Hosmer asked him into the house, and brought out apples and cider, and uncle Charles talked. “You!” said he, “I burst the bully of Haverhill.” He wanted to wrestle, would not be put off. “Well, we won’t wrestle in the house.” So they went out to the yard, and a crowd got round. “Come, spread some straw here,” said uncle Charles, - “I don’t want to hurt him.” He threw him at once. They tried again; he told them to spread more straw, and he “burst” him. Uncle Charles used to say that he had n’t a single tooth in his head. The fact was they were all double, and I have heard that he lost about all of them by the time he was twenty-one. Ever since I knew him he could swallow his nose. He had a strong head, and never got drunk; would drink gin sometimes, but not to excess. Did not use tobacco, except snuff out of another’s box, sometimes; was very neat in his person; was not profane, though vulgar.

Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders. But I cannot excuse myself for using the stone. It is not innocent, it is not just, so to maltreat the tree that feeds us. I am not disturbed by considering that if I thus shorten its life I shall not enjoy its fruit so long, but am prompted to a more innocent course by motives purely of humanity. I sympathize with the tree, yet I heaved a big stone against the trunks like a robber, — not too good to commit murder. I trust that I shall never do it again. These gifts should be accepted, not merely with gentleness, but with a certain humble gratitude. The tree whose fruit we would obtain should not be too rudely shaken even. It is not a time of distress, when a little haste and violence even might be pardoned. It is worse than boorish, it is criminal, to inflict an unnecessary injury on the tree that feeds or shadows us. Old trees are our parents, and our parents’ parents, perchance. If you would learn the secrets of Nature, you must practice more humanity than others. The thought that I was robbing myself by injuring the tree did not occur to me, but I was affected as if I had cast a rock at a sentient being, — with a duller sense than my own, it is true, but yet a distant relation. Behold a man cutting down a tree to come at the fruit! What is the moral of such an act? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1856

June 17, Tuesday: The Reverend Theodore Parker wrote to Dr. Füster, a Viennese professor, mentioning news of Professor Pierre Jean Édouard Desor.

In Worcester, Henry Thoreau, H.G.O. Blake, and Theophilus Brown needed to use a carriage when they went out to Quinsigamund Pond, because they were being accompanied by Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau.

Friend Daniel Ricketson abandoned Newport, Rhode Island to visit Concord to see Henry, unaware that Henry had gone to Worcester. The father John Thoreau must have been very short indeed, for a man who himself stood 5'3'' to have pronounced him “very short”:

Left Newport this morning at five o’clock for Concord, Mass., via Providence and Boston, and arrived at C. about 12 M. The sail up the Providence or Blackstone River was very fine, the morning being clear and the air very refreshing. My object in coming to Concord was to see H.D. Thoreau, but unfortunately I found him on a visit at Worcester, but I was received with great kindness and cordiality by his father and mother, and took tea with them. Mrs. Thoreau, like a true mother, idolizes her son, and gave me a long and interesting account of his character. Mr. Thoreau, a very short old gentleman, is a pleasant person. We took a short walk together after tea, returned to the Middlesex Hotel at ten. Mrs. T. gave me a long and particular account of W.E. Channing, who spent so many years here.

CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU ELLERY CHANNING DUNBAR FAMILY PROVIDENCE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS June 19, Thursday: Friend Daniel Ricketson to his journal, in Concord:

Walked after breakfast with Mr. Thoreau, Senr., by appointment to the cemetery and over the ridge to see EDMUND HOSMER Mr. Hosmer, an intelligent farmer. Purchased the life of Mary Ware, and a framed portrait of Charles Sumner, the former for Mrs. Thoreau, and the latter for her daughter Sophia. H.D. Thoreau and his sister S. arrived home this noon from a trip to Worcester. Passed a part of the afternoon on the river with H.D.T. in his little boat, — discussed Channing part of the time. Took tea and spent the evening at Mr. T.’s (Item) H.D.T. says buy “Margaret.”

CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU SOPHIA E. THOREAU ELLERY CHANNING JOHN THOREAU, SR. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1858

May 7, Friday: Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar reported some family news and some news about the recent weather, that he had driven Grandmother over to Weston on May 2d, that on May 3d after a local snowstorm he had ridden in a sleigh, and that on May 4th and 5th, returning in a chaise to Concord, the trip had been considered dangerous on account of the drifts from this storm. DUNBAR FAMILY

HENRY’S RELATIVES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1859

March 27, Sunday: Karl, Baron Schrenk replaced Karl Ludwig Heinrich, Baron Pfordten as government leader of Bavaria.

Cousin Charles Howard Dunbar reported that on the timbers of a very old house recently taken down in Haverhill, the chalk-marks made by the framers, numbering the sticks, were as fresh as if just made: It is remarkable how long many things may be preserved by excluding the air and light and dust, moisture, etc. Those chalk-marks on the chamber-floor joists and timbers of the Hunt house, one of which was read by many “Feb. 1666,” and all of which were in an ancient style of writing and expression,– “ye” for “the,” etc., “enfine Brown,”–were as fresh when exposed (having been plastered and cased over) as if made the day before. Yet a single day’s rain completely obliterated some of them. Cousin Charles says that, on the timbers of a very old house recently taken down in Haverhill, the chalk-marks made by the framers, numbering the sticks, [were] as fresh as if just made. DUNBAR FAMILY

March 27, 7AM: –Was that the Alauda, shore lark (?), which flew up from the corn-field beyond Texas house, and dashed off so swiftly with a peculiar note,–a small flock of them?

PM – Sail from Cardinal Shore up Otter Bay, close to Deacon Farrar’s. I see a gull flying over Fair Haven Pond which appears to have a much duskier body beneath than the common near by, though about the same size. Can it be another species? The wind is so nearly west to-day that we sail up from Cardinal Shore to the pond, and from the road up what I will call Otter Bay, behind Farrar’s, and, returning, sail from the road at Creel (or Pole) Brook to Pond Island and from Hallowell willows to railroad. The water is quite high still, and we sail up Otter Bay, I think, more than half a mile, to within a very short distance of Farrar’s. This is an interesting and wild place. There is an abundance of low willows whose catkins are now conspicuous, rising four to six or seven feet above the water, thickly placed on long wand-like osiers. They look, when you look from the sun, like dead gray twigs or branches (whose wood is exposed) of bushes in the light, but, nearer, are recognized for the pretty bright buttons of the willow. We sail by masses of these silvery buttons two or three rods long, rising above the water. By their color they have relation to the white clouds and the sky and to the snow and ice still lingering in a few localities. In order to see these silvery buttons in the greatest profusion, you must sail amid them on some flooded meadow or swamp like this. Our whole course, as we wind about in this bay, is lined also with the alder, whose pretty tassels, now many of them in full bloom, are hanging straight down, suggesting in a peculiar manner the influence of gravity, or are regularly blown one side.

It is remarkable how modest and unobtrusive these early flowers are. The musquash and duck hunter or the farmer might and do commonly pass by them with[OUT] perceiving them. They steal into the air and light of spring without being noticed for the most part. The sportsman seems to see a mass of weather-stained dead twigs showing their wood and partly covered with gray lichens and moss, and the flowers of the alder, now partly in bloom, maybe half, make the impression at a little distance of a collection of the brown twigs of winter–also are of the same color with many withered leaves. Twenty rods off, masses of alder in bloom look like masses of bare brown twigs, last year’s twigs, and would be taken for such. Of our seven indigenous flowers which begin to bloom in March, four, i. e. the two alders, the aspen, and the hazel, are not generally noticed so early, if at all, and most do not observe the flower of a fifth, the white maple. The first four are yellowish or reddish brown at a little distance, like the banks and sward moistened by the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS spring rain. The browns are the prevailing shades as yet, as in the withered grass and sedge and the surface of the earth, the withered leaves, and these brown flowers. I see from a hilltop a few very bright green spots a rod in diameter in the upper part of Farrar’s meadow, which the water has left within a day or two. Going there, I find that a very powerful spring is welling up there, which, with water warm from the bowels of the earth, has caused the grass and several weeds, as Cardamine rhomboidea, etc., to grow thus early and luxuriantly, and perhaps it has been helped by the flood standing over it for some days. These are bright liquid green in the midst of brown and withered grass and leaves. Such are the spots where the grass is greenest now. C. says that he saw a turtle dove on the 25th. It is remarkable how long many things may be preserved by excluding the air and light and dust, moisture, etc. Those chalk-marks on the chamber-floor joists and timbers of the Hunt house, one of which was read by many “Feb. 1666,” and all of which were in an ancient style of writing and expression,– “ye” for “the,” etc., “enfine Brown,”–were as fresh when exposed (having been plastered and cased over) as if made the day before. Yet a single day’s rain completely obliterated some of them. Cousin Charles says that, on the timbers of a very old house recently taken down in Haverhill, the chalk-marks made by the framers, numbering the sticks, [WERE] as fresh as if just made. I saw a large timber over the middle of the best room of the Hunt house which had been cased, according to all accounts, at least a hundred years ago, the casing having just been taken off. I saw that the timber appeared to have been freshly hewn on the under side, and I asked the carpenter who was taking down the house what he had been hewing that timber for,–for it had evidently been done since it was put up and in a very inconvenient position, and I had no doubt that he had just done it, for the surface was as fresh and distinct from the other parts as a fresh whittling,–but he answered to my surprise that he had not touched it, it was so when he took the casing off. When the casing was put on, it had been roughly hewn by one standing beneath it, in order to reduce its thickness or perhaps to make it more level than it was. So distinct and peculiar is the weather-stain, and so indefinitely it may be kept off if you do not allow this painter to come [?] to your wood. Cousin Charles says that he took out of the old Haverhill house a very broad panel from over the fireplace, which had a picture of Haverhill at some old period on it. The panel had been there perfectly sheltered in an inhabited house for more than a hundred years. It was placed in his shop and no moisture allowed to come near it, and yet it shrunk a quarter of an inch in width when the air came to both sides of it. He says that his men, who were digging a cellar last week on a southwest slope, found fifty-one snakes of various kinds and sizes–green, black, brown, etc.–about a foot underground, within two feet square (or cube?). The frost was out just there, but not in many parts of the cellar. They could not run, they were so stiff, but they ran their tongues out. They did [NOT] take notice of any hole or cavity. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1864

July: Waldo Emerson recorded in his JOURNAL for about his period, that:

Mrs Cynthia Thoreau, Henry’s mother, was a woman of a sharp & malicious wit, and a very entertaining story-teller, I have been told. But my wife repeats two or three passages of her wit. When I first bought a horse in Concord I looked about for a cheap carriage of some kind. Samuel Staples offered to sell me one called a rockaway which would carry four persons, & was decent & convenient. My wife had occasion to speak of it at Mrs Thoreau’s, and she replied, “O yes, I know it very well. ’Tis the old one in which Sam Staples always carries his prisoners to jail: they sat right in front of him so they could not get away.” A speech quite new to my wife, & which Mrs Thoreau hoped would not recommend her new carriage much to her imagination.

CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU

DUNBAR FAMILY

July: Waldo Emerson recorded in his JOURNAL for about his period, that:

When Henry was at Staten Island, he wrote two or three letters to my wife. She spoke of them to his family, who eagerly wished to see them. She consented, but said, “She was almost ashamed to show them, because Henry had exalted her by very undeserved praise.” — “O yes,” said his mother, “Henry is very tolerant.”

CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS July: Waldo Emerson began a notebook labeled “HT” in which he would compile materials about Henry Thoreau. He recorded in his JOURNAL for about his period, that:

Mrs [Lucy Jackson?] Brown who boarded with the Thoreaus, was one day talking with Mrs T. of the remarks made by many persons on the resemblances between Mr Emerson & Henry in manners, looks, voice, & thought. Henry spoke like Mr E. & walked like him, &c. “O yes,” said his mother, “Mr Emerson had been a good deal like David Henry, and it was very natural should catch his ways.”

CYNTHIA DUNBAR THOREAU DUNBAR FAMILY

Professor Henri-Frédéric Amiel, who would be referred to as the “Swiss Thoreau,” wrote in his JOURNAL INTIME: “Among the Alps I become a child again, with all the follies and naïveté of childhood. Shaking off the weight of years, the trappings of office, and all the tiresome and ridiculous caution with which one lives, I plunge into the full tide of pleasure, and amuse myself sans façon, as it comes. In this careless light-hearted mood, my ordinary formulas and habits fall away from me so completely that I feel myself no longer either townsman, or professor, or savant, or bachelor, and I remember no more of my past than if it were a dream. It is like a bath in Lethe. It makes me really believe that the smallest illness would destroy my memory, and wipe out all my previous existence, when I see with what ease I become a stranger to myself, and fall back once more into the condition of a blank sheet, a tabula rasa. Life wears such a dream-aspect to me that I can throw myself without any difficulty into the situation of the dying, before whose eyes all this tumult of images and forms fades into nothingness. I have the inconsistency of a fluid, a vapor, a cloud, and all is easily unmade or transformed in me; everything passes and is effaced like the waves which follow each other on the sea. When I say all, I mean all that is arbitrary, indifferent, partial, or intellectual in the combinations of one’s life. For I feel that the things of the soul, our immortal aspirations, our deepest affections, are not drawn into this chaotic whirlwind of impressions. It is the finite things which are mortal and fugitive. Every man feels it OH his deathbed. I feel it during the whole of life; that is the only difference between me and others. Excepting only love, thought, and liberty, almost everything is now a matter of indifference to me, and those objects which excite the desires of most men, rouse in me little more than curiosity. What does it mean — detachment of soul, disinterestedness, weakness, or wisdom?” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1872

March 12, Tuesday: Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau died.

THOREAU LIFESPANS

DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1893

June 7, Thursday: At the invitation of the Costa Rica Association of Students, José Martí delivered a lecture at the School of Law of Costa Rica.

John Muir was taken out to Concord by his former editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, as part of an attempt to secure the continued patronage of this well-regarded author. Muir found Concord, Massachusetts in June “much greener & fresher & calmer” than his own stomping grounds in and around the town of Martinez CA. They visited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord to lay flowers on Henry Thoreau’s and Waldo Emerson’s graves. Visiting Walden Pond, Muir reflecting, “No wonder Thoreau lived here two years. I could have enjoyed living here two hundred or two thousand. It is only about one and a half or two miles from Concord, a mere saunter, and how people should regard Thoreau as a hermit on account of his little delightful stay here HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS I cannot guess” (LIFE AND LETTERS OF JOHN MUIR, Chapter XVI “Trees and Travel, 1891-1897”).

During this year John Muir would also revisit Dunbar, Scotland, the town of his birth. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1917

According to Henry Thoreau’s early biographer Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, the fine old mansion of the loyalist Colonel Elisha Jones, at which the Reverend Asa Dunbar and his wife Mary Jones Dunbar, the Colonel’s daughter, had resided in 1775 and 1776, and which was confiscated after the Peace of 1783, had been moved into the village of Weston MA and was still in existence as of 1917. DUNBAR FAMILY

SANBORN ON THOREAU HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1965

April: Nigel Tranter’s article about the early history of the Dunbar clan in Scotland, “The Lost Earldom,” appeared in The Scots Magazine. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1973

Several pages of Dunbar family history were included in Ian Grimble’s SCOTTISH CLANS AND , published by the Tudor Publishing Company. DUNBAR FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1976

John Muir Country Park was designated in Dunbar, Scotland. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1981

The John Muir House and Birthplace Museum opened at 128 High Street, Dunbar, Scotland. Martinez, California acclaimed said Dunbar to be its sister city. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1994

July 27, Wednesday: In Dunbar, Scotland, a John Muir Association was founded. (The region now hosts, in addition, a nuclear power plant.)

A bomb exploded at an Israeli fund raising office in London.

Italian prosecutors arrested Paolo Berlusconi, brother of the Prime Minister, in the Fininvest scandal. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

1998

Sir James Michael Dunbar, 14th Baronet of Mochrum and 39th Hereditary Chief of the Name and Arms of Dunbar, has been since the death of his father in 1993 the presiding honcho of Clan Dunbar (also he’s been a bird colonel in the United States Air Force).

Found on the Lyndon LaRouche website : Henry David Thoreau was a wicked man. There was no more evil doctrine ever concocted, than the myth of “the noble savage,” or the related notion of the nobility of “the simple life.”

Lyndon (above) understands about wicked men like Henry the Simple of Concord, and he knows his BIBLE: EZEKIEL 33:8. If I tell the wicked man that he shall surely die, and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he (the wicked man) shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. 9. But if you warn the wicked man, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself. 10. As for you, son of man, speak to the house of Israel: You people say, “Our crimes and our sins weigh us down; we are rotting away because of them. How can we survive?” 11. Answer them: As I live, says the Lord GOD, I swear I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, but rather in the wicked man’s conversion, that he may live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! Why should you die, O house of Israel? 12. As for you, son of man, tell your countrymen: The virtue which a man has practiced will not save him on the day that he sins; neither will the wickedness that a man has done bring about his downfall on the day that he turns from his wickedness (nor can the virtuous man, when he sins, remain alive). 13. Though I say to the virtuous man that he shall surely live, if he then presumes on his virtue and does wrong, none of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered; because of the wrong he has done, he shall die. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS 14. And though I say to the wicked man that he shall surely die, if he turns away from his sin and does what is right and just, 15. giving back pledges, restoring stolen goods, living by the statutes that bring life, and doing no wrong, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 16. None of the sins he committed shall be held against him; he has done what is right and just, he shall surely live. 17. Yet your countrymen say, “The way of the LORD is not fair!”; but it is their way that is not fair. 18. When a virtuous man turns away from what is right and does wrong, he shall die for it. 19. But when a wicked man turns away from wickedness and does what is right and just, because of this he shall live.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2017. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: April 15, 2017 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Agnes Dunbar 9 October 1611 Lady Sornebeg Glasgow Commissary Court

Mrs. Agnes Dunbar alias Dickson 22 February 1865 Residing in Newington Parish Dumfries Sheriff Court of Holywood

Alexander Dunbar, Esquire 22 December 1859 Lessee of the Crown Lands of Wick Sheriff Court Scrabster

Alexander Dunbar 1 January 1749 of Machermore Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 1 January 1751 of Machermore Wigtown Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 1 January 1751 surgeon in Newton Stewart Wigtown Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 10 July 1644 indweller in Leith Edinburgh Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 10 July 1752 writer in Forres Moray Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 13 April 1579 of Conze, goodman of Kil- Edinburgh Commissary Court boyak

Alexander Dunbar 14 June 1828 farmer, Coston (Coatown) of Moray Commissary Court Altyre

Alexander Dunbar 17 April 1769 writer in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 18 December 1549 sometime Dean of Moray, Glasgow Commissary Court afterwards Canon of Glasgow

Alexander Dunbar 18 March 1747 of Grangehill Moray Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 19 February 1704 of Westfield, Sheriff of Murray Moray Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 19 March 1724 sometime merchant in Preston- Edinburgh Commissary Court pans, thereafter in Haddington

Alexander Dunbar 2 April 1795 Sir, of Northfield, baronet Moray Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 23 March 1869 Farmer in Mains of Skellater in Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories the parish of Tarland

Alexander Dunbar 23 October 1848 Merchant Grocer and Spirit Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Dealer in Aberdeen

Alexander Dunbar 24 August 1608 of Both, parish of Aulderne, Edinburgh Commissary Court sheriffdom of Nairn

Alexander Dunbar 24 June 1609 of Tarbert, sheriffdom of Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

Alexander Dunbar 27 July 1731 tailor, burgess of Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 28 June 1822 farmer, Coston (Coatown) of Moray Commissary Court Altyre

Alexander Dunbar 28 May 1602 of Inschebrok, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Spyney in Moray HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Alexander Dunbar 29 January 1708 minister of the Gospel at Old- Moray Commissary Court earn

Alexander Dunbar 3 December 1859 Lessee of the Crown Lands of Wick Sheriff Court Scrabster

Alexander Dunbar 3 March 1724 of Munkshill, late tenant at the Aberdeen Commissary Court Miln of Tiftie

Alexander Dunbar 5 January 1599 Dean of Moray, sometime sen- Edinburgh Commissary Court ator of the College of Justice

Alexander Dunbar 6 March 1601 Dean of Moray, sometime sen- Edinburgh Commissary Court ator of the College of Justice

Alexander Dunbar 7 February 1695 in Both Moray Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 9 April 1719 tailor, burgess of Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

Alexander Dunbar 9 October 1809 of Boath Moray Commissary Court

Alexander Patrickson Dunbar 25 April 1679 merchant in Inverness Inverness Commissary Court

Major Alexander Dunbar 17 September 1830 residing in Aberdeen Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

Major Alexander Dunbar 24 June 1873 residing in Aberdeen Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

Alexia (Alexandria) Dunbar 1 November 1848 Residing at Aitenlia in the Par- Elgin Sheriff Court Wills ish of Duthil

Alexia (Alexandria) Dunbar 27 December 1852 Residing at Aitenlia in the Par- Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories ish of Duthil

Mrs. Alexandrina Dunbar, alias Fraser 7 July 1868 widow of John Dunbar, Inverness Sheriff Court Esquire, Merchant in Glasgow, died at Muirfield House

Ann Dunbar 1 June 1872 Residing at Campbeltown Dunoon Sheriff Court

Miss Ann Dunbar 17 March 1851 Residing at Mills of Lethen Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

Anthony Dunbar 1 January 1722 in Kirkland of Minigaff Wigtown Commissary Court

Archbald Dunbar 8 May 1711 Captain, late of Colonel John Edinburgh Commissary Court Buchan’s Regiment

Archibald Dunbar 12 February 1809 Writer to the Signet Manse of Aberdeen Commissary Court Rathen

Archibald Dunbar 16 June 1691 of Newtown Moray Commissary Court

Archibald Dunbar 2 December 1809 Writer to the Signet, Manse of Aberdeen Commissary Court Rathen

Archibald Dunbar 23 January 1644 merchant, burgess of Edin- Edinburgh Commissary Court burgh

Archibald Dunbar 28 April 1578 of Penik, sheriffdom of Nairn Edinburgh Commissary Court

Archibald Dunbar 7 July 1769 of Thundertoun Moray Commissary Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Sir Archibald Dunbar, Baronet 10 May 1847 residing at Northfield Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

Sir Archibald Dunbar, Baronet 10 May 1847 residing at Northfield Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

Arthur Dunbar 24 April 1863 Foreman Joiner at Govan Roak Glasgow Sheriff Court Inventories of Glasgow

Catharine Dunbar 3 September 1772 residenter in Perth St Andrews Commissary Court

Charles Warner Dunbar 1 January 1794 of Machermore Wigtown Commissary Court

Christian Dunbar 18 April 1716 indweller in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

Colin Dunbar 11 May 1846 Residing at Dingwall Dingwall Sheriff Court

Colin Dunbar 21 August 1847 Residing at Dingwall (Bond of Dingwall Sheriff Court Caution)

Colin Dunbar 24 April 1846 Residing at Dingwall Dingwall Sheriff Court

Colin Dunbar 31 May 1850 Waiter in Dingwall Dingwall Sheriff Court

David Dunbar who died June 1643 23 November 1643 of Enterkine, parish of Mauch- Wigtown Commissary Court line

David Dunbar 1 April 1830 Minister of Leslie Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills

David Dunbar 1 October 1751 sometime dyster at Main, there- Moray Commissary Court after at Elgin

David Dunbar 18 January 1600 of Durris, parish of Dyk in Edinburgh Commissary Court Moray

David Dunbar 2 November 1691 of Kirkhill Moray Commissary Court

David Dunbar 23 November 1643 of Enterkine, parish of Mauch- Glasgow Commissary Court line

David Dunbar 3 January 1679 writer in Edinburgh, indweller Edinburgh Commissary Court in the Canongate

David Dunbar 9 August 1728 merchant in Dundee Brechin Commissary Court

David Dunbar 9 January 1645 of Enterkine, parish of Mauch- Glasgow Commissary Court line

Donald Dunbar 4 July 1860 House Carpenter in Pulteney- Wick Sheriff Court town

Duncan Dunbar 27 September 1860 residing in Don Street of Old Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Aberdeen

Duncan Dunbar 28 November 1789 at Mill of Moy Moray Commissary Court

Duncan Dunbar 6 January 1791 at Mill of Moy Moray Commissary Court

Elizabeth Dunbar 1 July 1823 in Forres Moray Commissary Court

Elizabeth Dunbar 16 November 1762 relict of Ludovick Dunbar of Moray Commissary Court Grange HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Elizabeth Dunbar 21 February 1570 daughter to umquhile Patrik Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Loch

Elizabeth Dunbar 3 January 1712 lawful daughter to Sir Robert Moray Commissary Court Dunbar of Grangehill

Elizabeth Dunbar 7 June 1738 in Buchraigie, relict of Patrick Aberdeen Commissary Court Ogilvie, sometime of Raggle

Miss Elizabeth Dunbar 18 July 1862 of Ness Cottage, Inverness Inverness Sheriff Court

Miss Elizabeth Dunbar 5 April 1833 Residing at Kinnoull Cottage, Perth Sheriff Court Parish of Kinnoull, County of Perth

Miss Elizabeth Heron Dunbar 24 February 1836 Residing in Perth Perth Sheriff Court

Mrs. Elsie Dunbar, alias McGregor 14 July 1875 resided at Pityonlish Inverness Sheriff Court

Sir Frederic William Dunbar, Baronet 10 March 1853 residing at Boath Nairn Sheriff Court Inventories

Sir Frederic William Dunbar, Baronet 19 July 1859 residing at Boath Nairn Sheriff Court Wills

Sir Frederic William Dunbar, Baronet 8 April 1853 residing at Boath Nairn Sheriff Court Wills

Gavin Dunbar 1 January 1711 Commissar Clerk of Krikcud- Kirkcudbright Commissary Court bright

Gavin Dunbar 17 January 1733 merchant, burgess of Dumfries Dumfries Commissary Court and Margaret Young, his spouse

Gavin Dunbar 30 May 1548 Archbishop of Glasgow and Glasgow Commissary Court Commendator of Inchaffry

Gavin Dunbar 5 November 1731 merchant, burgess of Dumfries Dumfries Commissary Court and Margaret Young, his spouse

Geillis Dunbar, daughter lawful to 28 May 1604 parish of Kirkkynner, sheriff- Edinburgh Commissary Court umquhile John Dunbar in Orchartoun dom of Wigtown

George Dunbar 17 June 1675 in Braeheid, parish of Mauch- Glasgow Commissary Court line

George Dunbar 17 October 1634 indweller in Leith Edinburgh Commissary Court

George Dunbar 18 October 1632 of Knockschinnoch, parish of Glasgow Commissary Court Cumnock

George Dunbar 21 January 1865 Tackman of athe Mills and Mill Elgin Sheriff Court Wills farm of Lethen in the Parish of Ardclach and County of Nairn

George Dunbar 21 January 1865 Tackman of athe Mills and Mill Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories farm of Lethen in the Parish of Ardclach and County of Nairn HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

George Dunbar 21 May 1768 merchant and late baillie of Edinburgh Commissary Court Edinburgh

George Dunbar 22 May 1820 farmer, Millahill Moray Commissary Court

George Dunbar 26 August 1628 of Knockschinnoch, parish of Glasgow Commissary Court Cumnock

George Dunbar 28 July 1829 Merchant and Shipowner in Banff Sheriff Court Macduff

George Dunbar 28 May 1820 farmer, Millahill Moray Commissary Court

George Dunbar 7 August 1652 brother-german to Samuell Glasgow Commissary Court Dunbar of Pollosche, burgh of Irvine

George Dunbar 8 August 1873 Crofter, residing at Ardgay in Elgin Sheriff Court Wills Alves

George Dunbar 8 August 1873 Crofts of Ardgar Alves Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

George Ramsay Dunbar, Esquire 16 October 1862 Advocate in Edinburgh, Fel- Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories low of the New College of Oxford

George Ramsay Dunbar 16 October 1862 Advocate in Edinburgh, Fel- Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills low of the New College of Oxford

Sir George Dunbar 25 October 1749 of Mochrum, parish of Larbert Stirling Commissary Court

Grecuia Dunbar, alias Grikie, sometime 9 July 1607 parish of Stratoun in Carrick, Edinburgh Commissary Court spouse to William M’Caddam in Auld- sheriffdom of crago

Grissell Dunbar 11 August 1586 Lady Mochrum, younger some- Edinburgh Commissary Court time spouse to Alexander Cunynghame of Craigends, sheriffdom of

Helen Dunbar 12 August 1835 Residing in Boath, died at For- Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories res

Helen Dunbar 8 July 1835 Residing in Routh Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

Hendrie Dunbar 7 April 1696 gardener in Cokburn, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Currie

Hew Dunbar 26 January 1648 Captain, fiar of Entirkine Edinburgh Commissary Court

Hew Dunbar 29 May 1621 of Lochingrioche, parish of Glasgow Commissary Court Cumnock

Honorable Captain Robert Dunbar 22 April 1858 of Latheronwheel, died at Wick Sheriff Court Hempriggs House near Wick

Honorable Captain Robert Dunbar 26 April 1861 of Latheronwheel, died at Wick Sheriff Court Hempriggs House near Wick HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Isabel Dunbar 26 September 1806 in Elgin Moray Commissary Court

Isabel Dunbar 29 January 1777 daughter of the deceased Alex- Edinburgh Commissary Court ander Dunbar, merchant in Edinburgh

Isabella Dunbar 5 November 1830 resided at Scrabster Wick Sheriff Court

Mrs. Isabella Dunbar, alias Bennet Lennox 22 May 1875 widow of George Dunbar, Sr., Dumfries Sheriff Court Cabinet Maker

Isobel Dunbar 25 February 1609 spouse to John Mitchell Glasgow Commissary Court

James Cospatrick Alexander Dunbar 8 November 1848 Captain in Her Majesty’s 98th Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills Regiment of Foot

James Cospatrick Alexander Dunbar 8 November 1848 Captain in Her Majesty’s 98th Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Regiment of Foot

James Dunbar 1 March 1728 at Miln of Rethen Aberdeen Commissary Court

James Dunbar 10 July 1786 minister at Boyndie Aberdeen Commissary Court

James Dunbar 13 March 1759 second son of deceased Aberdeen Commissary Court Archibald Dunbar of Til- lynaught

James Dunbar 14 April 1741 ? Moray Commissary Court

James Dunbar 16 May 1582 of Tarbent, sheriffdom of Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

James Dunbar 17 January 1691 son lawful to the deceased Moray Commissary Court James Dunbar at the Miln of Crombdell

James Dunbar 17 June 1601 of Tarbat, sheriffdom of Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

James Dunbar 18 October 1481 Lord of Derchester Wigtown Commissary Court

James Dunbar 19 May 1692 late minister at Saint Bathins Edinburgh Commissary Court

James Dunbar 19 May 1866 Farmer at Shonvail, Kilmaich- Banff Sheriff Court lie, Inveravon

James Dunbar 2 June 1743 in Cloves Moray Commissary Court

James Dunbar 2 November 1763 of Kinkorth Aberdeen Commissary Court

James Dunbar 2 November 1857 Farmer at Blindmills in the par- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories ish of Auchterless

James Dunbar 2 November 1857 Farmer at Blindmills in the par- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills ish of Auchterless

James Dunbar 21 December 1741 of Kilflett Moray Commissary Court

James Dunbar 21 January 1741 minister of Duffus Moray Commissary Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

James Dunbar 22 December 1736 minister of Duffus Moray Commissary Court

James Dunbar 22 December 1852 in the 93rd Regiment Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills

James Dunbar 22 January 1842 of Roath Baranet Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

James Dunbar 23 March 1689 of Inchbrock Moray Commissary Court

James Dunbar 23 October 1772 Captain in the East India Com- Edinburgh Commissary Court pany’s service, eldest son of the also deceased James Dunbar of Kincorth

James Dunbar 24 April 1752 writer in Kinross St Andrews Commissary Court

James Dunbar 26 July 1751 servitor to Sir John Bruce Hope St Andrews Commissary Court of Kinross, Bart.

James Dunbar 26 October 1772 of Kincorth, sometime residing Aberdeen Commissary Court in Aberdeen

James Dunbar 28 December 1699 wright in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

James Dunbar 28 June 1609 of Cumnok, in Moray Edinburgh Commissary Court

James Dunbar 3 September 1858 Farmer at Quarrywood in the Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories Parish of Newspynie

James Dunbar 3 September 1858 Farmer residing at Quarrywood Elgin Sheriff Court Wills Newspynie

James Dunbar 6 May 1724 of Dalcross Inverness Commissary Court

James Dunbar 7 December 1725 late baillie and merchant of Inverness Commissary Court Inverness

James Dunbar 8 November 1860 Residing in Newington Holy- Dumfries Sheriff Court wood

Lieutenant James Dunbar 22 December 1852 residing at No.15 Buccleuch Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Street of Edinburgh

Lieutenant James Dunbar 9 February 1754 Lieutenant of Colonel John Jor- Edinburgh Commissary Court dan’s Regiment of Foot, and son to the deceased Alexander Dunbar of Grangehill

Lieutenant James Dunbar 16 April 1836 residing in Buccleugh Street of Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Edinburgh

Sir James Dunbar, Baronet 19 November 1836 Residing in Boath Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

Sir James Dunbar, Baronet 19 November 1836 Residing at Boath Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

Sir James Dunbar, Baronet 14 January 1757 of Durn Aberdeen Commissary Court

Sir James Dunbar, Baronet 23 December 1737 of Durn Aberdeen Commissary Court

Sir James Dunbar of Mochrum, Bart 1 January 1719 parish of Mochrum Wigtown Commissary Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Jane Dunbar 22 March 1865 residing in Marine Terrace of Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Aberdeen

Jane Dunbar 30 May 1832 residing in Melville Street of Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Edinburgh, relict of Sir George Dunbar, Baronet of Mochrum

Janet Dunbar 28 October 1779 relict of Henry Innes of Sand- Edinburgh Commissary Court side

Janet Dunbar 28 October 1846 resided in Dailly Ayr Sheriff Court Inventories

Miss Jean Dunbar 13 November 1871 Tenant of the Farm of Blind- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories mills in the parish of Auchter- less

Miss Jean Dunbar 13 November 1871 Tenant of the Farm of Blind- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills mills in the parish of Auchter- less

Jean Dunbar 14 September 1756 in Auchinleith Aberdeen Commissary Court

Jean Dunbar 28 May 1825 relict of David Thomson, Dumfries Commissary Court tenant in Gateside of Isle

Jeane Dunbar 13 March 1668 spouse to Malcolm Fraser of Inverness Commissary Court Culduthill

John Dunbar, Esquire 14 May 1860 Merchant in Glasgow & Vall- Inverness Sheriff Court paraiso, died at Holme House near Nairn

John Dunbar 20 September 1853 Sheriff Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court in Peebles

John Dunbar 7 February 1854 Sheriffs Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court in Peebles

John Dunbar [No Date, probably Sheriff Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court around 1853/1854] in Peebles

John Dunbar [No Date, probably Sheriffs Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court around 1853/1854] in Peebles

John Dunbar 1 June 1866 Innkeeper in Perth Perth Sheriff Court

John Dunbar 13 February 1711 Captain in the British Fuziliers Edinburgh Commissary Court

John Dunbar 15 September 1599 in Ochartoun, parish of Kirk- Edinburgh Commissary Court madin, sheriffdom of Wigton

John Dunbar 16 June 1848 Bookbinder in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

John Dunbar 19 August 1771 in Ellon Aberdeen Commissary Court

John Dunbar 19 July 1875 builder in Stewarton Ayr Sheriff Court Inventories

John Dunbar 19 July 1875 builder in Stewarton Ayr Sheriff Court Testamentary Deeds HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

John Dunbar 20 May 1749 sometime merchant in Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

John Dunbar 21 March 1551 of Knokschenoch Glasgow Commissary Court

John Dunbar 22 August 1745 John, minister at Menmure Dunkeld Commissary Court

John Dunbar 22 December 1599 at the Waterside of Findorne, Edinburgh Commissary Court parish of Moy in Moray

John Dunbar 23 December 1867 Wright at Fordoun Stonehaven Sheriff Court

John Dunbar 23 March 1853 Farm Servant in Ballhall in Sheriff Court Menmuir

John Dunbar 24 July 1754 glover in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

John Dunbar 25 July 1867 Ironmonger in Edinburgh Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories

John Dunbar 25 July 1867 ironmonger in Edinburgh Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills

John Dunbar 25 March 1718 merchant, burgess of Edin- Edinburgh Commissary Court burgh

John Dunbar 25 May 1609 in Calsayfurde, parish of For- Edinburgh Commissary Court ress, sheriffdom of Elgin

John Dunbar 28 April 1675 in Barnmuir, parish of Tarbol- Glasgow Commissary Court toun

John Dunbar 28 January 1591 of Knokschynnoch, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Cumnok, sheriffdom of Ayr

John Dunbar 29 March 1833 of Coston Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

John Dunbar 3 March 1579 Sir, of Mochrum, knight Edinburgh Commissary Court

John Dunbar 2 June 1752 of Burgie, advocate Moray Commissary Court

John Dunbar 21 January 1809 Minister of Dyke Moray Commissary Court

John Dunbar 30 June 1710 of Kirkhill Moray Commissary Court

John Dunbar 7 July 1710 of Kirkhill Moray Commissary Court

John Dunbar 4 March 1755 sometime in Luibmore Aberdeen Commissary Court

John Dunbar 5 June 1846 Esquire, residing at Seapark in Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories Parish of Kinloss

John Dunbar 6 July 1602 of Polloche, parish of Cumnock Edinburgh Commissary Court in Kyle, sheriffdom of Ayr

John Dunbar 8 January 1846 Residing in Seapark in Parish Elgin Sheriff Court Wills of Kinloss

Lieutenant John Dunbar 16 April 1713 second lawful son to Sir James Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Mochrum and Lieu- tenant in the Earl of Stair’s Regiment of Dragoons HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Lieutenant John Dunbar 3 July 1741 second lawful son to Sir James Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Mochrum and Lieu- tenant in the Earl of Stair’s Regiment of Dragoons

Lieutenant John Dunbar 4 June 1713 second lawful son to Sir James Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Mochrum and Lieu- tenant in the Earl of Stair’s Regiment of Dragoons

Jonet Dunbar 24 October 1637 daughter lawful to umquhile Edinburgh Commissary Court Hew Dunbar, writer in Edin- burgh

Jonet Dunbar 29 July 1682 spouse to James Oliphant of Edinburgh Commissary Court Ure in Zetland

Jonet Dunbar 7 November 1598 sometime spouse to William Edinburgh Commissary Court Dawson, portioner of Hempri- gis, parish of Alves, sheriffdom of Moray

Joseph Dunbar 7 November 1794 of Grange Moray Commissary Court

Justine Dunbar 4 July 1826 widow of George Gunn Munro Moray Commissary Court of Pointzfield

Katherine Dunbar 4 July 1626 spouse to Daniell Mitchell in Glasgow Commissary Court Graigmane, parish of Cumnock

Keith Dunbar 2 July 1799 depute-clerk of Session Edinburgh Commissary Court

Lachlan Dunbar 7 May 1750 of Dunphaill Moray Commissary Court

Lauchlan Dunbar 30 July 1752 son to the deceased David Dun- Edinburgh Commissary Court bar of Dunphaill

Lavinia Dunbar, alias Cunninghame 2 June 1875 residing at Inveresk, relict of Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories John Thomas Dunbar, Esquire of Blackweks near Dublin

Lewis Dunbar 25 February 1867 Farmer at Lullochgriban in the Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories Parish of Duthil

Lieutenant Colonel William Watson Dun- 6 February 1833 residing at Kinoull Cottage, Perth Sheriff Court bar Parish of Kinnoull, Parish of Perth

Lilias Dunbar 3 February 1704 relict of Archibald Geddes, of Moray Commissary Court Eshell

Lucy Dunbar 11 November 1741 spouse to Alexander Cumming, Moray Commissary Court of Loggie

Miss Margaret Dunbar 8 June 1839 of Nepsside Inverness Sheriff Court

Margaret Dunbar 1 January 1673 in Chirnside, spouse to Patrick Lauder Commissary Court Rennet HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Margaret Dunbar 1 January 1740 Lady Borgue, relict of Kirkcudbright Commissary Court umquhile Hugh M’Guffog, alias Blair of Ruscoe

Margaret Dunbar 1 May 1667 spouse to Thomas Greine, Inverness Commissary Court shoemaker in Inverness

Margaret Dunbar 18 January 1798 in Farthingwell, parish of Dun- Dumfries Commissary Court score, who formerly resided at Portrack

Margaret Dunbar 23 January 1749 widow of Isaac Matheson, liv- Edinburgh Commissary Court ing on the Leurehaven, near Dolphin Street in Rotterdam

Marion Dunbar 10 April 1579 Lady Middiltoune, in the Edinburgh Commissary Court Mearns

Marion Dunbar 6 May 1619 spouse to Gilbert Grahame of Glasgow Commissary Court Craig, parish of Kilwyning

Miss Marjory Dunbar 4 July 1855 Residing in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

Marjorie Dunbar 1 November 1614 spouse to Edward Wallace of Glasgow Commissary Court Sewalton

Marjorie Dunbar 11 November 1695 lawful daughter to umquhile Moray Commissary Court Nicolas Dunbar in Unthank

Marjorie Dunbar 13 December 1737 lawful daughter to the deceased Moray Commissary Court William Dunbar of Dykeside

Marjory Dunbar 4 July 1855 in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

Marjory Dunbar 7 November 1769 relict of James Bailie of Moray Commissary Court Migdale

Mary Dunbar 1 January 1709 daughter of umquhile Sir David Kirkcudbright Commissary Court of Dunbar, Baldon

Mary Dunbar 17 March 1756 in Fordyce, relict of James Aberdeen Commissary Court Ogilvie, late of Toux

Mrs. Janet Dunbar 22 December 1874 alias Wilson, resided at Long- Kirkcudbright Sheriff Court too Bank, Cassock

Norman Dunbar 14 March 1687 in Kintrae Moray Commissary Court

Patrick Dunbar 17 January 1788 minister of Nairn Moray Commissary Court

Patrick Dunbar 17 March 1788 minister of Nairn Moray Commissary Court

Patrick Dunbar 24 May 1688 of Tilliglens Moray Commissary Court

Patrick Dunbar 3 April 1835 Grocer in Paisley Paisley Sheriff Court

Patrik Dunbar 17 August 1596 of Bennethfeild, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Avach, and sheriffdom of Inverness HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Patrik Dunbar 18 December 1593 burgess of Weymss, Fife Edinburgh Commissary Court

Patrik Dunbar 26 July 1597 cotter in Kilconquhar St Andrews Commissary Court

Patrik Dunbar 26 October 1602 of Boighall, sheref wardatur of Edinburgh Commissary Court Elgin and Forres, sheriffdom of Moray

Rachael Dunbar 1 September 1738 relict of Mr. William M’Ghie, Edinburgh Commissary Court minister at Selkirk

Reverend David Dunbar 1 April 1830 Minister of Leslie Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

Reverend Lewis Dunbar 1 October 1830 Minister of the Parish of Kin- Perth Sheriff Court noull in County of Perth

Reverend Robert Dunbar 31 December 1859 Minister at Pluscarden Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

Reverend William Burnside Dunbar 9 November 1868 Minister of Parish of Glencairn Dumfries Sheriff Court

Reverend William Dunbar 30 January 1862 Minister of Parish of Apple- Dumfries Sheriff Court garth

Robert Dunbar 1 November 1865 InnKeeper in Grantown Inverness Sheriff Court

Robert Dunbar 11 February 1873 Feuar, Residing at Stonehaven Stonehaven Sheriff Court

Robert Dunbar 13 April 1702 of Burgie Moray Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 13 October 1700 Westfield [torn out] Moray Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 15 September 1862 Farm Bailiff of Dee Cottage, Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Queensferry in the parish of Hawarden, county of Flint in Wales

Robert Dunbar 17 February 1742 land-waiter in Perth St Andrews Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 19 July 1704 of Grangehill Moray Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 2 July 1840 Tinsmith in Paisley Paisley Sheriff Court

Robert Dunbar 22 April 1783 minister of the Gospel at Dyke Moray Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 25 January 1788 second minister of Parish of St. Aberdeen Commissary Court Machar

Robert Dunbar 27 February 1830 of the Tax Office in Edinburgh Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories

Robert Dunbar 28 July 1772 physician in Banff Aberdeen Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 28 November 1738 in Smidieboyn Aberdeen Commissary Court

Robert Dunbar 5 December 1677 weaver in Chirnsyde Lauder Commissary Court

Robert Nugent Dunbar, Esquire 27 November 1866 residing at No.59 Brompton Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Square, Brompton, Middlesex (Letters of Administration)

Robert Nugent Dunbar 27 November 1866 of No. 59 Brompton Sq. in Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills Brompton, Middlesex county HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

Ronald Dunbar 2 February 1754 W.S Edinburgh Commissary Court

Ronald Dunbar 3 July 1779 W.S Edinburgh Commissary Court

Sarah Dunbar or Dunbarr 18 June 1807 of Hendrond Lauder Commissary Court

Sarah Dunbar or Dunbarr 18 June 1807 of Houdrond Lauder Commissary Court

Sophia Dunbar or Dunbarr 6 January 1816 of Grange in Nairn Moray Commissary Court

Thomas Dunbar or Dunbarr 6 April 1818 Major-General of the Island of Moray Commissary Court Tobago who died at Elgin

Thomas Dunbar 1 October 1551 at Kinglassie, I.184 St Andrews Commissary Court

Thomas Dunbar 20 January 1852 Farmer in Bordelseat of Gartly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

Thomas Dunbar 20 January 1852 Farmer in Bordelseat of Gartly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills

Thomas Dunbar 3 October 1718 cousin to the deceased Thomas Moray Commissary Court Dunbar of Grange

Thomas Dunbar 4 January 1821 Coach Maker at Glasgow Glasgow Sheriff Court Inventories

Thomas Dunbar 6 June 1717 cousin to the deceased Thomas Moray Commissary Court Dunbar of Grange

Thomas Dunbar 7 July 1593 in Wester, Rarithae, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Nig, sheriffdom of Inverness

Wiliam Dunbar 1 January 1752 writer in Kirkcudbright Kirkcudbright Commissary Court

William Dunbar or Dunbarr 19 December 1801 Town Clerk, Forres Moray Commissary Court

William Dunbar or Dunbarr 28 June 1821 in Fardingwall Dumfries Commissary Court

William Dunbar or Dunbarr 9 June 1806 of Nether Duckie, residing at Aberdeen Commissary Court Portsoy

William Dunbar, Esquire 9 September 1831 Merchant in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

William Dunbar 1 February 1709 commissar-officer Edinburgh Commissary Court

William Dunbar 1 March 1775 sometime of Mackenmore Edinburgh Commissary Court

William Dunbar 10 March 1845 Merchant and Feuar at Fife- Banff Sheriff Court keith

William Dunbar 11 August 1863 Tailor in Edzell Forfar Sheriff Court

William Dunbar 13 July 1703 merchant, burgess of Edin- Edinburgh Commissary Court burgh

William Dunbar 13 March 1685 of Maverstow Moray Commissary Court

William Dunbar 13 March 1689 of Polknick Edinburgh Commissary Court

William Dunbar 16 April 1870 Draper and Hozier residing in Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills Aberdeen HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY NAME:

Name Date Descriptor Jurisdiction

William Dunbar 16 April 1870 Draper and Hozier residing in Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Chapel Street of Aberdeen

William Dunbar 17 October 1749 of Grange Aberdeen Commissary Court

William Dunbar 18 May 1871 residing at Baikiehill of Baden- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories scoth in the parish of Auchter- less

William Dunbar 19 March 1850 Carpenter in Aberdeen Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

William Dunbar 2 October 1705 lawful son to umquhile Mr. Moray Commissary Court David Dunbar, minister at Nairn

William Dunbar 20 October 1840 resided at Bogend, parish of Ayr Sheriff Court Inventories Tarbolton

William Dunbar 20 September 1709 glover in Elgin Moray Commissary Court

William Dunbar 21 November 1707 in Newmiln Moray Commissary Court

William Dunbar 22 June 1583 servant St Andrews Commissary Court

William Dunbar 27 September 1827 Merchant, residing in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

William Dunbar 28 July 1840 writer in Huntly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

William Dunbar 28 July 1840 Writer in Huntly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills

William Dunbar 3 August 1608 in Cloustang, parish of Tarbol- Edinburgh Commissary Court toun, sheriffdom of Ayr

William Dunbar 3 October 1654 sometime servitor to Sir Edinburgh Commissary Court Archibald Johnstoun of Warris- ton

William Dunbar 4 January 1840 gardener at Philorth in the par- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories ish of Fraserburgh

William Dunbar 5 June 1752 late of London, merchant Edinburgh Commissary Court

William Dunbar 6 November 1707 Sir, of Durn Moray Commissary Court

William Dunbar 6 September 1806 of Nether Duckie, residing at Aberdeen Commissary Court Portsoy

William Dunbar 7 December 1790 merchant in Forres Moray Commissary Court

William Rowe Dunbar, Baronet 16 November 1842 residing at Mochrum Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS

Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1481 18 October James Dunbar Lord of Derchester Wigtown Commissary Court

1548 30 May Gavin Dunbar Archbishop of Glasgow and Glasgow Commissary Court Commendator of Inchaffry

1549 18 December Alexander Dunbar sometime Dean of Moray, Glasgow Commissary Court afterwards Canon of Glasgow

1551 21 March John Dunbar of Knokschenoch Glasgow Commissary Court

1551 1 October Thomas Dunbar at Kinglassie, I.184 St Andrews Commissary Court

1570 21 February Elizabeth Dunbar daughter to umquhile Patrik Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Loch

1578 28 April Archibald Dunbar of Penik, sheriffdom of Nairn Edinburgh Commissary Court

1579 13 April Alexander Dunbar of Conze, goodman of Kil- Edinburgh Commissary Court boyak

1579 3 March John Dunbar Sir, of Mochrum, knight Edinburgh Commissary Court

1579 10 April Marion Dunbar Lady Middiltoune, in the Edinburgh Commissary Court Mearns

1582 16 May James Dunbar of Tarbent, sheriffdom of Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

1583 22 June William Dunbar servant St Andrews Commissary Court

1586 11 August Grissell Dunbar Lady Mochrum, younger some- Edinburgh Commissary Court time spouse to Alexander Cunynghame of Craigends, sheriffdom of Renfrew

1591 28 January John Dunbar of Knokschynnoch, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Cumnok, sheriffdom of Ayr

1593 18 December Patrik Dunbar burgess of Weymss, Fife Edinburgh Commissary Court

1593 7 July Thomas Dunbar in Wester, Rarithae, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Nig, sheriffdom of Inverness

1596 17 August Patrik Dunbar of Bennethfeild, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Avach, and sheriffdom of Inverness

1597 26 July Patrik Dunbar cotter in Kilconquhar St Andrews Commissary Court

1598 7 November Jonet Dunbar sometime spouse to William Edinburgh Commissary Court Dawson, portioner of Hempri- gis, parish of Alves, sheriffdom of Moray

1599 5 January Alexander Dunbar Dean of Moray, sometime sen- Edinburgh Commissary Court ator of the College of Justice HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1599 15 September John Dunbar in Ochartoun, parish of Kirk- Edinburgh Commissary Court madin, sheriffdom of Wigton

1599 22 December John Dunbar at the Waterside of Findorne, Edinburgh Commissary Court parish of Moy in Moray

1600 18 January David Dunbar of Durris, parish of Dyk in Edinburgh Commissary Court Moray

1601 6 March Alexander Dunbar Dean of Moray, sometime sen- Edinburgh Commissary Court ator of the College of Justice

1601 17 June James Dunbar of Tarbat, sheriffdom of Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

1602 28 May Alexander Dunbar of Inschebrok, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Spyney in Moray

1602 6 July John Dunbar of Polloche, parish of Cumnock Edinburgh Commissary Court in Kyle, sheriffdom of Ayr

1602 26 October Patrik Dunbar of Boighall, sheref wardatur of Edinburgh Commissary Court Elgin and Forres, sheriffdom of Moray

1604 28 May Geillis Dunbar, daughter lawful to parish of Kirkkynner, sheriff- Edinburgh Commissary Court umquhile John Dunbar in Orchartoun dom of Wigtown

1607 9 July Grecuia Dunbar, alias Grikie, sometime parish of Stratoun in Carrick, Edinburgh Commissary Court spouse to William M’Caddam in Auld- sheriffdom of Ayr crago

1608 24 August Alexander Dunbar of Both, parish of Aulderne, Edinburgh Commissary Court sheriffdom of Nairn

1608 3 August William Dunbar in Cloustang, parish of Tarbol- Edinburgh Commissary Court toun, sheriffdom of Ayr

1609 24 June Alexander Dunbar of Tarbert, sheriffdom of Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness

1609 25 February Isobel Dunbar spouse to John Mitchell Glasgow Commissary Court

1609 28 June James Dunbar of Cumnok, in Moray Edinburgh Commissary Court

1609 25 May John Dunbar in Calsayfurde, parish of For- Edinburgh Commissary Court ress, sheriffdom of Elgin

1611 9 October Agnes Dunbar Lady Sornebeg Glasgow Commissary Court

1614 1 November Marjorie Dunbar spouse to Edward Wallace of Glasgow Commissary Court Sewalton

1619 6 May Marion Dunbar spouse to Gilbert Grahame of Glasgow Commissary Court Craig, parish of Kilwyning

1621 29 May Hew Dunbar of Lochingrioche, parish of Glasgow Commissary Court Cumnock HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1626 4 July Katherine Dunbar spouse to Daniell Mitchell in Glasgow Commissary Court Graigmane, parish of Cumnock

1628 26 August George Dunbar of Knockschinnoch, parish of Glasgow Commissary Court Cumnock

1632 18 October George Dunbar of Knockschinnoch, parish of Glasgow Commissary Court Cumnock

1634 17 October George Dunbar indweller in Leith Edinburgh Commissary Court

1637 24 October Jonet Dunbar daughter lawful to umquhile Edinburgh Commissary Court Hew Dunbar, writer in Edin- burgh

1643 23 November David Dunbar of Enterkine, parish of Mauch- Glasgow Commissary Court line

1643 23 November David Dunbar who died June 1643 of Enterkine, parish of Mauch- Wigtown Commissary Court line

1644 10 July Alexander Dunbar indweller in Leith Edinburgh Commissary Court

1644 23 January Archibald Dunbar merchant, burgess of Edin- Edinburgh Commissary Court burgh

1645 9 January David Dunbar of Enterkine, parish of Mauch- Glasgow Commissary Court line

1648 26 January Hew Dunbar Captain, fiar of Entirkine Edinburgh Commissary Court

1652 7 August George Dunbar brother-german to Samuell Glasgow Commissary Court Dunbar of Pollosche, burgh of Irvine

1654 3 October William Dunbar sometime servitor to Sir Edinburgh Commissary Court Archibald Johnstoun of Warris- ton

1667 1 May Margaret Dunbar spouse to Thomas Greine, Inverness Commissary Court shoemaker in Inverness

1668 13 March Jeane Dunbar spouse to Malcolm Fraser of Inverness Commissary Court Culduthill

1673 1 January Margaret Dunbar in Chirnside, spouse to Patrick Lauder Commissary Court Rennet

1675 17 June George Dunbar in Braeheid, parish of Mauch- Glasgow Commissary Court line

1675 28 April John Dunbar in Barnmuir, parish of Tarbol- Glasgow Commissary Court toun

1677 5 December Robert Dunbar weaver in Chirnsyde Lauder Commissary Court

1679 25 April Alexander Patrickson Dunbar merchant in Inverness Inverness Commissary Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1679 3 January David Dunbar writer in Edinburgh, indweller Edinburgh Commissary Court in the Canongate

1682 29 July Jonet Dunbar spouse to James Oliphant of Edinburgh Commissary Court Ure in Zetland

1685 13 March William Dunbar of Maverstow Moray Commissary Court

1687 14 March Norman Dunbar in Kintrae Moray Commissary Court

1688 24 May Patrick Dunbar of Tilliglens Moray Commissary Court

1689 23 March James Dunbar of Inchbrock Moray Commissary Court

1689 13 March William Dunbar of Polknick Edinburgh Commissary Court

1691 16 June Archibald Dunbar of Newtown Moray Commissary Court

1691 2 November David Dunbar of Kirkhill Moray Commissary Court

1691 17 January James Dunbar son lawful to the deceased Moray Commissary Court James Dunbar at the Miln of Crombdell

1692 19 May James Dunbar late minister at Saint Bathins Edinburgh Commissary Court

1695 7 February Alexander Dunbar in Both Moray Commissary Court

1695 11 November Marjorie Dunbar lawful daughter to umquhile Moray Commissary Court Nicolas Dunbar in Unthank

1696 7 April Hendrie Dunbar gardener in Cokburn, parish of Edinburgh Commissary Court Currie

1699 28 December James Dunbar wright in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

1700 13 October Robert Dunbar Westfield [torn out] Moray Commissary Court

1702 13 April Robert Dunbar of Burgie Moray Commissary Court

1703 13 July William Dunbar merchant, burgess of Edin- Edinburgh Commissary Court burgh

1704 19 February Alexander Dunbar of Westfield, Sheriff of Murray Moray Commissary Court

1704 3 February Lilias Dunbar relict of Archibald Geddes, of Moray Commissary Court Eshell

1704 19 July Robert Dunbar of Grangehill Moray Commissary Court

1705 2 October William Dunbar lawful son to umquhile Mr. Moray Commissary Court David Dunbar, minister at Nairn

1707 21 November William Dunbar in Newmiln Moray Commissary Court

1707 6 November William Dunbar Sir, of Durn Moray Commissary Court

1708 29 January Alexander Dunbar minister of the Gospel at Old- Moray Commissary Court earn HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1709 1 January Mary Dunbar daughter of umquhile Sir David Kirkcudbright Commissary Court of Dunbar, Baldon

1709 1 February William Dunbar commissar-officer Edinburgh Commissary Court

1709 20 September William Dunbar glover in Elgin Moray Commissary Court

1710 30 June John Dunbar of Kirkhill Moray Commissary Court

1710 7 July John Dunbar of Kirkhill Moray Commissary Court

1711 8 May Archbald Dunbar Captain, late of Colonel John Edinburgh Commissary Court Buchan’s Regiment

1711 1 January Gavin Dunbar Commissar Clerk of Krikcud- Kirkcudbright Commissary Court bright

1711 13 February John Dunbar Captain in the British Fuziliers Edinburgh Commissary Court

1712 3 January Elizabeth Dunbar lawful daughter to Sir Robert Moray Commissary Court Dunbar of Grangehill

1713 16 April Lieutenant John Dunbar second lawful son to Sir James Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Mochrum and Lieu- tenant in the Earl of Stair’s Regiment of Dragoons

1713 4 June Lieutenant John Dunbar second lawful son to Sir James Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Mochrum and Lieu- tenant in the Earl of Stair’s Regiment of Dragoons

1716 18 April Christian Dunbar indweller in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

1717 6 June Thomas Dunbar cousin to the deceased Thomas Moray Commissary Court Dunbar of Grange

1718 25 March John Dunbar merchant, burgess of Edin- Edinburgh Commissary Court burgh

1718 3 October Thomas Dunbar cousin to the deceased Thomas Moray Commissary Court Dunbar of Grange

1719 9 April Alexander Dunbar tailor, burgess of Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

1719 1 January Sir James Dunbar of Mochrum, Bart parish of Mochrum Wigtown Commissary Court

1722 1 January Anthony Dunbar in Kirkland of Minigaff Wigtown Commissary Court

1724 19 March Alexander Dunbar sometime merchant in Preston- Edinburgh Commissary Court pans, thereafter in Haddington

1724 3 March Alexander Dunbar of Munkshill, late tenant at the Aberdeen Commissary Court Miln of Tiftie

1724 6 May James Dunbar of Dalcross Inverness Commissary Court

1725 7 December James Dunbar late baillie and merchant of Inverness Commissary Court Inverness HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1728 9 August David Dunbar merchant in Dundee Brechin Commissary Court

1728 1 March James Dunbar at Miln of Rethen Aberdeen Commissary Court

1731 27 July Alexander Dunbar tailor, burgess of Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

1731 5 November Gavin Dunbar merchant, burgess of Dumfries Dumfries Commissary Court and Margaret Young, his spouse

1733 17 January Gavin Dunbar merchant, burgess of Dumfries Dumfries Commissary Court and Margaret Young, his spouse

1736 22 December James Dunbar minister of Duffus Moray Commissary Court

1737 13 December Marjorie Dunbar lawful daughter to the deceased Moray Commissary Court William Dunbar of Dykeside

1737 23 December Sir James Dunbar, Baronet of Durn Aberdeen Commissary Court

1738 7 June Elizabeth Dunbar in Buchraigie, relict of Patrick Aberdeen Commissary Court Ogilvie, sometime of Raggle

1738 1 September Rachael Dunbar relict of Mr. William M’Ghie, Edinburgh Commissary Court minister at Selkirk

1738 28 November Robert Dunbar in Smidieboyn Aberdeen Commissary Court

1740 1 January Margaret Dunbar Lady Borgue, relict of Kirkcudbright Commissary Court umquhile Hugh M’Guffog, alias Blair of Ruscoe

1741 14 April James Dunbar ? Moray Commissary Court

1741 21 December James Dunbar of Kilflett Moray Commissary Court

1741 21 January James Dunbar minister of Duffus Moray Commissary Court

1741 3 July Lieutenant John Dunbar second lawful son to Sir James Edinburgh Commissary Court Dunbar of Mochrum and Lieu- tenant in the Earl of Stair’s Regiment of Dragoons

1741 11 November Lucy Dunbar spouse to Alexander Cumming, Moray Commissary Court of Loggie

1742 17 February Robert Dunbar land-waiter in Perth St Andrews Commissary Court

1743 2 June James Dunbar in Cloves Moray Commissary Court

1745 22 August John Dunbar John, minister at Menmure Dunkeld Commissary Court

1747 18 March Alexander Dunbar of Grangehill Moray Commissary Court

1749 1 January Alexander Dunbar of Machermore Wigtown Commissary Court

1749 20 May John Dunbar sometime merchant in Inver- Edinburgh Commissary Court ness HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1749 23 January Margaret Dunbar widow of Isaac Matheson, liv- Edinburgh Commissary Court ing on the Leurehaven, near Dolphin Street in Rotterdam

1749 25 October Sir George Dunbar of Mochrum, parish of Larbert Stirling Commissary Court

1749 17 October William Dunbar of Grange Aberdeen Commissary Court

1750 7 May Lachlan Dunbar of Dunphaill Moray Commissary Court

1751 1 January Alexander Dunbar of Machermore Wigtown Commissary Court

1751 1 January Alexander Dunbar surgeon in Newton Stewart Wigtown Commissary Court

1751 1 October David Dunbar sometime dyster at Main, there- Moray Commissary Court after at Elgin

1751 26 July James Dunbar servitor to Sir John Bruce Hope St Andrews Commissary Court of Kinross, Bart.

1752 10 July Alexander Dunbar writer in Forres Moray Commissary Court

1752 24 April James Dunbar writer in Kinross St Andrews Commissary Court

1752 2 June John Dunbar of Burgie, advocate Moray Commissary Court

1752 30 July Lauchlan Dunbar son to the deceased David Dun- Edinburgh Commissary Court bar of Dunphaill

1752 1 January Wiliam Dunbar writer in Kirkcudbright Kirkcudbright Commissary Court

1752 5 June William Dunbar late of London, merchant Edinburgh Commissary Court

1754 24 July John Dunbar glover in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

1754 9 February Lieutenant James Dunbar Lieutenant of Colonel John Jor- Edinburgh Commissary Court dan’s Regiment of Foot, and son to the deceased Alexander Dunbar of Grangehill

1754 2 February Ronald Dunbar W.S Edinburgh Commissary Court

1755 4 March John Dunbar sometime in Luibmore Aberdeen Commissary Court

1756 14 September Jean Dunbar in Auchinleith Aberdeen Commissary Court

1756 17 March Mary Dunbar in Fordyce, relict of James Aberdeen Commissary Court Ogilvie, late of Toux

1757 14 January Sir James Dunbar, Baronet of Durn Aberdeen Commissary Court

1759 13 March James Dunbar second son of deceased Aberdeen Commissary Court Archibald Dunbar of Til- lynaught

1762 16 November Elizabeth Dunbar relict of Ludovick Dunbar of Moray Commissary Court Grange

1763 2 November James Dunbar of Kinkorth Aberdeen Commissary Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1768 21 May George Dunbar merchant and late baillie of Edinburgh Commissary Court Edinburgh

1769 17 April Alexander Dunbar writer in Edinburgh Edinburgh Commissary Court

1769 7 July Archibald Dunbar of Thundertoun Moray Commissary Court

1769 7 November Marjory Dunbar relict of James Bailie of Moray Commissary Court Migdale

1771 19 August John Dunbar in Ellon Aberdeen Commissary Court

1772 3 September Catharine Dunbar residenter in Perth St Andrews Commissary Court

1772 23 October James Dunbar Captain in the East India Com- Edinburgh Commissary Court pany’s service, eldest son of the also deceased James Dunbar of Kincorth

1772 26 October James Dunbar of Kincorth, sometime residing Aberdeen Commissary Court in Aberdeen

1772 28 July Robert Dunbar physician in Banff Aberdeen Commissary Court

1775 1 March William Dunbar sometime of Mackenmore Edinburgh Commissary Court

1777 29 January Isabel Dunbar daughter of the deceased Alex- Edinburgh Commissary Court ander Dunbar, merchant in Edinburgh

1779 28 October Janet Dunbar relict of Henry Innes of Sand- Edinburgh Commissary Court side

1779 3 July Ronald Dunbar W.S Edinburgh Commissary Court

1783 22 April Robert Dunbar minister of the Gospel at Dyke Moray Commissary Court

1786 10 July James Dunbar minister at Boyndie Aberdeen Commissary Court

1788 17 January Patrick Dunbar minister of Nairn Moray Commissary Court

1788 17 March Patrick Dunbar minister of Nairn Moray Commissary Court

1788 25 January Robert Dunbar second minister of Parish of St. Aberdeen Commissary Court Machar

1789 28 November Duncan Dunbar at Mill of Moy Moray Commissary Court

1790 7 December William Dunbar merchant in Forres Moray Commissary Court

1791 6 January Duncan Dunbar at Mill of Moy Moray Commissary Court

1794 1 January Charles Warner Dunbar of Machermore Wigtown Commissary Court

1794 7 November Joseph Dunbar of Grange Moray Commissary Court

1795 2 April Alexander Dunbar Sir, of Northfield, baronet Moray Commissary Court

1798 18 January Margaret Dunbar in Farthingwell, parish of Dun- Dumfries Commissary Court score, who formerly resided at Portrack HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1799 2 July Keith Dunbar depute-clerk of Session Edinburgh Commissary Court

1801 19 December William Dunbar or Dunbarr Town Clerk, Forres Moray Commissary Court

1806 26 September Isabel Dunbar in Elgin Moray Commissary Court

1806 6 September William Dunbar of Nether Duckie, residing at Aberdeen Commissary Court Portsoy

1806 9 June William Dunbar or Dunbarr of Nether Duckie, residing at Aberdeen Commissary Court Portsoy

1807 18 June Sarah Dunbar or Dunbarr of Hendrond Lauder Commissary Court

1807 18 June Sarah Dunbar or Dunbarr of Houdrond Lauder Commissary Court

1809 9 October Alexander Dunbar of Boath Moray Commissary Court

1809 12 February Archibald Dunbar Writer to the Signet Manse of Aberdeen Commissary Court Rathen

1809 2 December Archibald Dunbar Writer to the Signet, Manse of Aberdeen Commissary Court Rathen

1809 21 January John Dunbar Minister of Dyke Moray Commissary Court

1816 6 January Sophia Dunbar or Dunbarr of Grange in Nairn Moray Commissary Court

1818 6 April Thomas Dunbar or Dunbarr Major-General of the Island of Moray Commissary Court Tobago who died at Elgin

1820 22 May George Dunbar farmer, Millahill Moray Commissary Court

1820 28 May George Dunbar farmer, Millahill Moray Commissary Court

1821 4 January Thomas Dunbar Coach Maker at Glasgow Glasgow Sheriff Court Inventories

1821 28 June William Dunbar or Dunbarr in Fardingwall Dumfries Commissary Court

1822 28 June Alexander Dunbar farmer, Coston (Coatown) of Moray Commissary Court Altyre

1823 1 July Elizabeth Dunbar in Forres Moray Commissary Court

1825 28 May Jean Dunbar relict of David Thomson, Dumfries Commissary Court tenant in Gateside of Isle

1826 4 July Justine Dunbar widow of George Gunn Munro Moray Commissary Court of Pointzfield

1827 27 September William Dunbar Merchant, residing in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

1828 14 June Alexander Dunbar farmer, Coston (Coatown) of Moray Commissary Court Altyre

1829 28 July George Dunbar Merchant and Shipowner in Banff Sheriff Court Macduff

1830 1 April David Dunbar Minister of Leslie Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills

1830 5 November Isabella Dunbar resided at Scrabster Wick Sheriff Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1830 17 September Major Alexander Dunbar residing in Aberdeen Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

1830 1 April Reverend David Dunbar Minister of Leslie Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

1830 1 October Reverend Lewis Dunbar Minister of the Parish of Kin- Perth Sheriff Court noull in County of Perth

1830 27 February Robert Dunbar of the Tax Office in Edinburgh Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories

1831 9 September William Dunbar, Esquire Merchant in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1832 30 May Jane Dunbar residing in Melville Street of Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Edinburgh, relict of Sir George Dunbar, Baronet of Mochrum

1833 29 March John Dunbar of Coston Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

1833 6 February Lieutenant Colonel William Watson Dun- residing at Kinoull Cottage, Perth Sheriff Court bar Parish of Kinnoull, Parish of Perth

1833 5 April Miss Elizabeth Dunbar Residing at Kinnoull Cottage, Perth Sheriff Court Parish of Kinnoull, County of Perth

1835 12 August Helen Dunbar Residing in Boath, died at For- Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories res

1835 8 July Helen Dunbar Residing in Routh Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

1835 3 April Patrick Dunbar Grocer in Paisley Paisley Sheriff Court

1836 16 April Lieutenant James Dunbar residing in Buccleugh Street of Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Edinburgh

1836 24 February Miss Elizabeth Heron Dunbar Residing in Perth Perth Sheriff Court

1836 19 November Sir James Dunbar, Baronet Residing in Boath Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1836 19 November Sir James Dunbar, Baronet Residing at Boath Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

1839 8 June Miss Margaret Dunbar of Nepsside Inverness Sheriff Court

1840 2 July Robert Dunbar Tinsmith in Paisley Paisley Sheriff Court

1840 20 October William Dunbar resided at Bogend, parish of Ayr Sheriff Court Inventories Tarbolton

1840 28 July William Dunbar writer in Huntly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

1840 28 July William Dunbar Writer in Huntly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills

1840 4 January William Dunbar gardener at Philorth in the par- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories ish of Fraserburgh

1842 22 January James Dunbar of Roath Baranet Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1842 16 November William Rowe Dunbar, Baronet residing at Mochrum Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories

1845 10 March William Dunbar Merchant and Feuar at Fife- Banff Sheriff Court keith HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1846 11 May Colin Dunbar Residing at Dingwall Dingwall Sheriff Court

1846 24 April Colin Dunbar Residing at Dingwall Dingwall Sheriff Court

1846 28 October Janet Dunbar resided in Dailly Ayr Sheriff Court Inventories

1846 5 June John Dunbar Esquire, residing at Seapark in Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories Parish of Kinloss

1846 8 January John Dunbar Residing in Seapark in Parish Elgin Sheriff Court Wills of Kinloss

1847 21 August Colin Dunbar Residing at Dingwall (Bond of Dingwall Sheriff Court Caution)

1847 10 May Sir Archibald Dunbar, Baronet residing at Northfield Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1847 10 May Sir Archibald Dunbar, Baronet residing at Northfield Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

1848 23 October Alexander Dunbar Merchant Grocer and Spirit Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Dealer in Aberdeen

1848 1 November Alexia (Alexandria) Dunbar Residing at Aitenlia in the Par- Elgin Sheriff Court Wills ish of Duthil

1848 8 November James Cospatrick Alexander Dunbar Captain in Her Majesty’s 98th Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills Regiment of Foot

1848 8 November James Cospatrick Alexander Dunbar Captain in Her Majesty’s 98th Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Regiment of Foot

1848 16 June John Dunbar Bookbinder in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1850 31 May Colin Dunbar Waiter in Dingwall Dingwall Sheriff Court

1850 19 March William Dunbar Carpenter in Aberdeen Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

1851 17 March Miss Ann Dunbar Residing at Mills of Lethen Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1852 27 December Alexia (Alexandria) Dunbar Residing at Aitenlia in the Par- Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories ish of Duthil

1852 22 December James Dunbar in the 93rd Regiment Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills

1852 22 December Lieutenant James Dunbar residing at No.15 Buccleuch Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Street of Edinburgh

1852 20 January Thomas Dunbar Farmer in Bordelseat of Gartly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

1852 20 January Thomas Dunbar Farmer in Bordelseat of Gartly Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills

1853 20 September John Dunbar Sheriff Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court in Peebles

1853 23 March John Dunbar Farm Servant in Ballhall in Forfar Sheriff Court Menmuir

1853 10 March Sir Frederic William Dunbar, Baronet residing at Boath Nairn Sheriff Court Inventories

1853 8 April Sir Frederic William Dunbar, Baronet residing at Boath Nairn Sheriff Court Wills HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1854 7 February John Dunbar Sheriffs Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court in Peebles

1855 4 July Marjory Dunbar in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Wills

1855 4 July Miss Marjory Dunbar Residing in Elgin Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1857 2 November James Dunbar Farmer at Blindmills in the par- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories ish of Auchterless

1857 2 November James Dunbar Farmer at Blindmills in the par- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills ish of Auchterless

1858 22 April Honorable Captain Robert Dunbar of Latheronwheel, died at Wick Sheriff Court Hempriggs House near Wick

1858 3 September James Dunbar Farmer at Quarrywood in the Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories Parish of Newspynie

1858 3 September James Dunbar Farmer residing at Quarrywood Elgin Sheriff Court Wills Newspynie

1859 3 December Alexander Dunbar Lessee of the Crown Lands of Wick Sheriff Court Scrabster

1859 22 December Alexander Dunbar, Esquire Lessee of the Crown Lands of Wick Sheriff Court Scrabster

1859 31 December Reverend Robert Dunbar Minister at Pluscarden Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1859 19 July Sir Frederic William Dunbar, Baronet residing at Boath Nairn Sheriff Court Wills

1860 4 July Donald Dunbar House Carpenter in Pulteney- Wick Sheriff Court town

1860 27 September Duncan Dunbar residing in Don Street of Old Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Aberdeen

1860 8 November James Dunbar Residing in Newington Holy- Dumfries Sheriff Court wood

1860 14 May John Dunbar, Esquire Merchant in Glasgow & Vall- Inverness Sheriff Court paraiso, died at Holme House near Nairn

1861 26 April Honorable Captain Robert Dunbar of Latheronwheel, died at Wick Sheriff Court Hempriggs House near Wick

1862 16 October George Ramsay Dunbar Advocate in Edinburgh, Fel- Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills low of the New College of Oxford

1862 16 October George Ramsay Dunbar, Esquire Advocate in Edinburgh, Fel- Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories low of the New College of Oxford

1862 18 July Miss Elizabeth Dunbar of Ness Cottage, Inverness Inverness Sheriff Court HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1862 30 January Reverend William Dunbar Minister of Parish of Apple- Dumfries Sheriff Court garth

1862 15 September Robert Dunbar Farm Bailiff of Dee Cottage, Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Queensferry in the parish of Hawarden, county of Flint in Wales

1863 24 April Arthur Dunbar Foreman Joiner at Govan Roak Glasgow Sheriff Court Inventories of Glasgow

1863 11 August William Dunbar Tailor in Edzell Forfar Sheriff Court

1865 21 January George Dunbar Tackman of athe Mills and Mill Elgin Sheriff Court Wills farm of Lethen in the Parish of Ardclach and County of Nairn

1865 21 January George Dunbar Tackman of athe Mills and Mill Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories farm of Lethen in the Parish of Ardclach and County of Nairn

1865 22 March Jane Dunbar residing in Marine Terrace of Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Aberdeen

1865 22 February Mrs. Agnes Dunbar alias Dickson Residing in Newington Parish Dumfries Sheriff Court of Holywood

1865 1 November Robert Dunbar InnKeeper in Grantown Inverness Sheriff Court

1866 19 May James Dunbar Farmer at Shonvail, Kilmaich- Banff Sheriff Court lie, Inveravon

1866 1 June John Dunbar Innkeeper in Perth Perth Sheriff Court

1866 27 November Robert Nugent Dunbar of No. 59 Brompton Sq. in Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills Brompton, Middlesex county

1866 27 November Robert Nugent Dunbar, Esquire residing at No.59 Brompton Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories Square, Brompton, Middlesex (Letters of Administration)

1867 23 December John Dunbar Wright at Fordoun Stonehaven Sheriff Court

1867 25 July John Dunbar Ironmonger in Edinburgh Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories

1867 25 July John Dunbar ironmonger in Edinburgh Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills

1867 25 February Lewis Dunbar Farmer at Lullochgriban in the Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories Parish of Duthil

1868 7 July Mrs. Alexandrina Dunbar, alias Fraser widow of John Dunbar, Inverness Sheriff Court Esquire, Merchant in Glasgow, died at Muirfield House

1868 9 November Reverend William Burnside Dunbar Minister of Parish of Glencairn Dumfries Sheriff Court

1869 23 March Alexander Dunbar Farmer in Mains of Skellater in Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories the parish of Tarland HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE DUNBAR CLAN THE DUNBARS Dunbar Records in Scotland, sorted BY YEAR:

Year Date Name Descriptor Jurisdiction

1870 16 April William Dunbar Draper and Hozier residing in Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills Aberdeen

1870 16 April William Dunbar Draper and Hozier residing in Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories Chapel Street of Aberdeen

1871 13 November Miss Jean Dunbar Tenant of the Farm of Blind- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories mills in the parish of Auchter- less

1871 13 November Miss Jean Dunbar Tenant of the Farm of Blind- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Wills mills in the parish of Auchter- less

1871 18 May William Dunbar residing at Baikiehill of Baden- Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories scoth in the parish of Auchter- less

1872 1 June Ann Dunbar Residing at Campbeltown Dunoon Sheriff Court

1873 8 August George Dunbar Crofter, residing at Ardgay in Elgin Sheriff Court Wills Alves

1873 8 August George Dunbar Crofts of Ardgar Alves Elgin Sheriff Court Inventories

1873 24 June Major Alexander Dunbar residing in Aberdeen Aberdeen Sheriff Court Inventories

1873 11 February Robert Dunbar Feuar, Residing at Stonehaven Stonehaven Sheriff Court

1874 22 December Mrs. Janet Dunbar alias Wilson, resided at Long- Kirkcudbright Sheriff Court too Bank, Cassock

1875 19 July John Dunbar builder in Stewarton Ayr Sheriff Court Inventories

1875 19 July John Dunbar builder in Stewarton Ayr Sheriff Court Testamentary Deeds

1875 2 June Lavinia Dunbar, alias Cunninghame residing at Inveresk, relict of Edinburgh Sheriff Court Inventories John Thomas Dunbar, Esquire of Blackweks near Dublin

1875 14 July Mrs. Elsie Dunbar, alias McGregor resided at Pityonlish Inverness Sheriff Court

1875 22 May Mrs. Isabella Dunbar, alias Bennet Lennox widow of George Dunbar, Sr., Dumfries Sheriff Court Cabinet Maker

1853/1854 [No Date, John Dunbar Sheriff Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court probably in Peebles around 1853/ 1854]

1853/1854 [No Date, John Dunbar Sheriffs Officer and Auctioneer Peebles Sheriff Court probably in Peebles around 1853/ 1854]