S. C. Dunham, who has devoted his attention to general agricultural pursuits through his entire business career, is now one of the substantial and representative farmers of East Boyer township. His birth occurred in Clinton county, Iowa, on the 26th of May, 1851, his parents being John A. and Celinda R. (Richardson) Dunham. The father, a native of Fulton county, Illinois, was a son of Cornelius Dunham. The other children of that marriage were Louisa, Cornelius and Sophronia.
S. C. Dunham obtained his education in a log schoolhouse at Dunlap, Iowa, and remained under the parental roof until nineteen years of age. At that time he started out as an agriculturist on his own account and the work of the fields has claimed his attention almost continuously since. With the exception of seven years spent in Nebraska and a period of six years in Monona county, Iowa, he has always made his home in Crawford county. At the present time he operates a tract of one hundred and eighty acres of land in East Boyer township-the site of the old homestead where Cornelius Dunham and Franklin Prentiss, the original settlers of this county, located in 1849.
Mr. Dunham owns a farm of eighty acres in Minnesota and is widely recognized as a prosperous and esteemed citizen. He possesses considerable mechanical skill and has invented, among other things, a hay loader which has proved a very useful device, about twenty-five of them being now utilized in Crawford county.
When twenty-three years of age Mr. Dunham was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary J. Miller, by whom he had ten children, the record of whom is as follows: Kate, the wife of Rolla Christy, of Dunlap, Iowa; John A., who is a resident of Los Angeles, California; Lois, the wife of John Rowe, of Missouri Valley, Iowa; Gussie, the wife of Ed Christy, of Dunlap, Iowa; Edith, the wife of Neal Crampton, of Hayes township, this county; Bessie, who is deceased; Tracy, living in Oroville, California; Fanny, the wife of Henry Sowder, of Chadron, Nebraska; and Jessie and Jennie, twins.
Mr. Dunham is a republican in politics and has held a number of township offices, ever discharging his public duties in a most prompt and capable manner. His interests are thoroughly identified with those of Crawford county and at all times he is ready to lend his aid and cooperation to any movement calculated to benefit this section of the country or advance its wonderful development.