INFORMATION ON JOSIAH DUNHAM WANTED

(The following letter may stimulate the spirit of research in some favorably situated alumnus.)

Portland, Maine, July 6, 1919.

My dear Mr. Keyes:

Referring to yours of June second, in regard amongst other items to Josiah Dunham, I have to say that it is strange that concerning this very remarkable man we know next to nothing in comparison with what we ought to know. I wish that you could find some senior with a bent for historical investigation to study this man's career. You will find something concerning him in my two Judah Dana papers of last year, as in my life of Dr. Lyman Spaulding and, as well, in Chase and Lord "Histories of Dartmouth."

He was a very remarkable man, in my opinion, and seems to me to stand next to Daniel Webster as a famous Dartmouth Graduate. He drew that first picture of Dartmouth. He was orator for many years in succession at Hanover and at towns adjacent in New Hampshire and Vermont; — a political speechmaker, a Fourth of July orator, a popular speaker, a writer of verses, of plays, and so on, — so much so that he ought to be followed up. The best sources would be old Hanover Newspapers; after that, Vermont Historical documents and local newspapers.

He seems to have left Hanover after the University dispute, and, not to have been followed up, later on, by men connected with Dartmouth because of not supporting Webster's side of the dispute. Never mind that, all disputes are ephemeral, largely, and Dunham deserves wider recognition from Dartmouth than he has ever received.

It is difficult for me, living in Maine, to trace out a man spending so many years in New Hampshire, for we do not have your sources in this State for our research, and were it not for that I would help you. In fact, if you can get anybody over at Dartmouth to study up available records there, I will do my share here, to place Capt. Dunham, U. S. A. 2nd Artillery, Commander at Fort Constitution, Portsmouth Harbor, and so on, in his proper place.

I had occasion a year or two since to remind Quint that he had forgotten the distinguished position of Dunham at Dartmouth and to reprove him for speaking of him in his book as "a certain Dunham. For that reason and for his letters to my grandfather and their intimacy at Portsmouth, etc., I am anxious to have a good life of Josiah Dunham composed before I die myself and call for somebody to say something about me.

Yours very truly,

James A. Spaulding.