Dunn - Miriam Wilson - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, 3 April 1896

An interesting chapter of the early history of Crawfordsville was revived Tuesday when the mortal remains of Mrs. Williamson Dunn were disinterred at the Old Town Cemetery, preparatory to their removal to the Dunn family cemetery at Madison, Ind. Williamson Dunn was one of the founders of Crawfordsville and was connected with Major Ambrose Whitlock in the land office at this place. Mr Dunn came here with his wife and children from Madison in 1822, and Mrs. Dunn died in 1837, leaving her husband and eleven children to mourn her loss. The family lived in a house which stood on the lot now occupied by the residence of Capt. J. B. Pence, and which house, indeed, remained until torn down to make room for the Pence residence. Mrs. Dunn was buried in the Old Town cemetery and was among the first to be laid to rest in that once beautiful city of the dead, Williamson Dunn was re-married about, a year after his first wife's death to a lady in Ohio, who became a most excellent mother to his children. The family later removed to Madison and. there Williamson Dunn and wife are buried. In 1850, Gen. McKee Dunn and Dr. W. P. Dunn, of Frankfort, erected here a handsome monument to their mother's memory in the Old Town cemetery. This winter while Mrs. H. S. Lane was in Washington she informed the family of Gen. Dunn of the neglected condition of the Old Town cemetery and at their solicitation she consented to superintend the removal of Mrs. Dunn's remains. Mrs. Lane personally superintended the dis-interment Tuesday, the remains being found in a very excellent state of preservation considering their long rest of seventy years there. In the same cemetery repose the ashes of Dr. Canby and wife, the patents of the lamented Gen. Canby, who were also among Crawfordsville's earliest settlers. Dr Canby was of one of the most aristocratic families of Maryland and came here to assume a governmental office. His residence stood on the present site of the Central School building. No headstone marks the Canby graves and they have left only a memory. Mrs. Dunn's remains were sent to Madison arid laid to rest again by the side of those of her husband. Crawfordsville and the world have altered since the separation in life of Williamson Dunn and his wife and are not the town and world they knew, but they contributed to the conditions of to-day and there is something peculiarly and pathetically fitting in their reunion in death after so many, many years of change. - transcribed by Kim H