Marvin H. Dunham - update 8/28/2016

Marvin H. Dunham was born August 23 1835, in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, the son of New York natives Daniel (1787-1870) and Susannah (1809-1870).

His family settled in Pennsylvanian sometime before their oldest son Alonzo was born in 1823. By 1850 Marvin was living with his family on a farm in Union, Erie County, Pennsylvania, where he attended school with his older siblings. Marvin left Pennsylvania and moved west, eventually settling in western Michigan.

He stood 5’6” with brown hair and light hair and a light complexion, and was a 22-year-old shoemaker possibly living in Muskegon County when he enlisted on May 10, 1861, in Company H. (Company H, formerly the “Muskegon Rangers,” was made up largely of men from the vicinity of Muskegon and Newaygo counties.) He was taken ill on March 10, 1862, and in July of 1862 was absent sick in a hospital, probably in Master Street (also known as Sixth Street) hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he told an agent for the Michigan Soldiers’ Aid Association that he was suffering from kidney disease. Marvin was discharged for “heart disease and affection of the kidneys” on July 26, 1862, at Master Street hospital. It is not known if Marvin returned to Michigan after the war.

He married Emily E, Herron (1844-1921) in 1865 or 1866, probably in Pennsylvania, and they may have had at least three children: Arthur (born 1869 in Pennsylvania), Michigan natives Mabel (b. 1874) and Nellie D. (b. 1876, Dr. Nellie D. Lynn).

In 1870 Marvin was living with his wife and son and working as a shoemaker in Corry’s 1st Ward, Erie County, Pennsylvania. By 1900 he and his wife Emily were living with their daughter Mabel Potter and her husband in District 9, Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife; he was still residing in Baltimore in 1910.

In 1879 he applied for and received a pension (no. 252981).

Apparently he died on October 15, 1918, in Maryland, probably in Baltimore and is buried in Govans Presbyterian Church Cemetery (the grave is apparently unmarked).

His widow was living in Maryland in October of 1918 when she applied for and received a pension (no. 862046). By 1920 Emily was living with her daughter (she was the head of the household) and her son in Baltimore, Maryland.