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Note: ! Emigrated to US on 2 March 1887, on S.S. Gallia from Liverpool to New York. Along with half-brother Robert F. TODHUNTER. Joe was 19, Robert 28.
Returned to England in 1905/6 for one year but returned to US and in 1908 filed declaration of intent to become US Citizen in District Court Birmingham, Jefferson Co., Alabama. Robert Todhunter filed at same time.
Founded American Products Company of Boyne City, Michigan.
Supposedly held several patents on Iron process.
SSN: 367-18-5287 According to Application for Account Number Joseph D (initial only) Dunn, filed for his SSN on 8 Dec 1937 at Newberry MI while working for the Newberry Lumber and Chemical Company. He stated his age was 70, born March 20, 1867 County of Cumberland England Nanworth? Father John Malcolm Dunn Mother Sarah Foster
View the <a href="http://www.netease.net/members/edby3/Album/JDDunn.htm">J. D. Dunn Photograph Album</a>See WorldConnect database edb-dunn for the genealogy of Sarah Jane Dunn and her parents Joseph "D" Dunn and Frances Jane Tilley.
Biographical Sketch JOSEPH D. DUNN FAMILY
Joseph D. Dunn was born 20 March 1867, in the little village of Bothel in Cumberland County, England. He was the son of John and Jane Peel Dunn. His mother died shortly after his birth and his father, John Dunn, remarried to a widow, Mrs. Sarah Foster Todhunter, who had one son, Robert Foster Todhunter, born 13 May 1858, Plumbland, Cumberland County, England. Joseph D. Dunn had an older brother named John Malcolm Dunn, called Jack, who was born 20 Oct 1863. Joseph's father was a coal miner and he grew up in and around the coal mines in northern England. When he was twelve years old he got a job carrying the mail to the mines. In 1886, he and his step brother immigrated to the United States to join brother Jack who was already in Missouri working in the coal mines. Joseph and Robert arrived in Baltimore, Maryland and immediately set off the join Jack in Missouri. When they got there, they learned that Jack had returned to England and the mines were closed. Through friends they were able to find work with the Southern Iron Company in Dayton, Rhea County, Tennessee. Shortly after arriving in Dayton, Joseph met Frances Jane Tilley, the daughter of Joseph and Jane Young Tilley who were also from Cumberland County, England. Frances Jane Tilley was born 31 July 1870 in Durham County, England. Joseph and Frances were married in Dayton on 14 Dec 1887, and promptly moved to Ensley, Jefferson County, Alabama where he worked as an electrician at one of the iron furnaces. Four children were born to Joseph and Frances Jane Tilley Dunn: Sarah Jane, born 4 Nov 1888, who married first, Joseph E. Walsh and second Edgar Byler; Frances Elizabeth, who married Joseph M. Davenport; Joseph, b. 3 July 1899, and died 25 July 1916 in Petosky, Michigan; and John Malcolm, born in 1905, married first to Catherine _____; and second to Virginia M. Brabon. All the children were born in Jefferson County, Alabama. In 1905, after receiving a large bonus from the iron company for which he worked, the whole family took a year's vacation and returned to England. It was Joseph's intention to return to England permanently. However, they returned to the United States in late 1905. Joseph said on his return that he wouldn't give one inch of the United States for the whole of England. In 1908 he filed his Declaration of Intent to become a U.S. Citizen. By 1910, the family had moved to Boyne City, Michigan where Joseph founded the American Products Company. His patents in the iron industry allowed him to work as he pleased and he became known as a "Furnace Doctor", an expert who could tell what was wrong with the mix of ores and charcoal in the furnace. His company was in great demand and he spent much of his time traveling from one furnace site to another. In 1918, his company was awarded the contract to build and operate the charcoal iron furnace to be built at Collinwood, Tennessee by the Tennessee Valley Iron and Railroad Company in conjunction with the construction of the Wood Alcohol Distillation plant being built for the U.S. Bureau of Aeroplace Manufacture. This plant was part of the munitions production program for World War I. Joseph and his brother Jack went to Texas where they dismantled a furnace and brought it back to Collinwood on the train. Construction began immediately and by July of 1918 the furnace was complete. Meanwhile, the family loaded what they wanted to move into boxcars and moved to Collinwood. They arrived in March of 1918 and caused quiet a stir in town when they unloaded two automobiles from a boxcar. They made their home in a newly constructed company house on the north end of Sixth Avenue in Collinwood. The spring behind the house is still known as the Dunn Spring. Joseph was a flamboyant person, always doing things in a grand style. When he learned that there was no bank in Collinwood for the workers to use, he took his own funds and founded the Wayne County Trust Company, the first bank in Collinwood. The sojourn in Collinwood was to prove beneficial to his eldest daughter. Sarah Jane Dunn had been recently widowed. Her first husband, Joseph E. Walsh had died in 1916, and she and her two children: Joseph Emmet Walsh and Robert Emmet Walsh had returned home to live with her father. While in Collinwood, she met Edgar Byler, son of the local postmaster, merchant and doctor, Dr. S. E. Byler. They were married in Russellville, Alabama on 12 November 1919, just one month before the Dunn family returned to Michigan. Sarah and Edgar had three children: Laura Jane Byler, b. 7 July 1920, Manistique, Michigan; Edgar Donald Byler, b. 19 September 1921, Collinwood, Tennessee and Naomi Ruth Byler, b. 28 Jan 1923 in Collinwood, Tennessee. Also while in Collinwood, Mrs. Dunn fell in love with a farm north of town and wanted to buy the place. In 1924, they did buy the farm, the old Judge Jonathan Morris place on the headwaters of Green River in the Highland community. It was their intention to make this their retirement home. In 1934 they began construction of a new house and moved into the house in 1935. The house was designed as an English country house and for its day was one of the finest houses in the county. They named the house "Tenalamich." Frances Jane Tilley Dunn died on the 7th of January 1936 at the farm north of Collinwood, Tennessee and was buried in McGlamery Cemetery. Joseph returned to work in the iron industry in Michigan and worked during the early part of World War II refurbishing old furnaces for the war effort. He retired to the farm in 1945 and died there on 8 July 1950. He is also buried at McGlamery.
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