Dunbar - James
JAMES DUNBAR
Written by: Karen Bazzani Zach -- sources include my Montgomery Medicine Men (MCHS, 2002), as well as his death record, marriage record, census and findagrave.com
James Dunbar is quite an illusive character. According to census records, he was born (on the 13th day of August in 1827), somewhere in Kentucky and spent early years in southern Indiana. He worked with Dr. Wesley White in Morgan County beginning when James was about 22 years old.
During the Civil War he was in an Independent Company of Capt. A. J. Lee's which was attached to the 51st Indiana Infantry. He began receiving a pension from August 28, 1888 until his death in Battle Ground where he had spent about three decades. This was on the eighth day of April in 1900 and was due to chronic bronchitis which had bothered him for several years.
His first marriage took place in Owen County Indiana on 8 April 1852. Isn't it ironic he died on that day 48 years later? They were married but a few years when Nancy passed away on August 26, 1866. He was taken to Owen County (Combes Cemetery in Quincy) when he passed away to be buried with her although he had been married to his second wife, Evaline (Eva) Jesse for 33 years.
Dr. J. Dunbar (as he signed documents) practiced in (the) upper Boone County, eastern and upper Montgomery and lower Tippecanoe for about 45 years.
To my knowledge, he had no children but raised one small girl, Mattie Foster.