• Name: Maurice Mackenzie Collins
• Sex: M
• Birth: July 4, 1899
• Death: March 13, 1988
• Residence:  Lived alone on Dry Branch near Churchville, Va..
• Notes: born in the “old” Dunlap house on Swoope Branch near Lone Fountain, Va.. Unmarried. Teacher in US Government High School in Puerto Rico, teacher and/or Principal in public and Military Schools in Va.. Civil Engineer and cartographer, with W M Ritter Lumber Company for many years.
• Author: Maurice Mackenzie Collins,  Author of Genealogy, ETC. of the Samuel Alexander Dunlap Family of Augusta County, Virginia By Maurice M. Collins May 1, 1981

After reading portions of “THE HOUSE OF DUNLAP” by James Arthur MacClellan Hanna, published by Edwards Brothers, Inc., of Ann Arbor, Michigan, in l956, and recognizing the numerous errors pertaining to the genealogy of the Samuel A. Dunlap family, I decided to try to prepare a mere authentic record.

It has been a long and tedious task to obtain all the information I am pre­senting. In fact, I began this work on March 9, 1962. Certain names were spelled in as many as three different ways and certain dates pertaining to births and deaths were either lacking or contradictory. I had to do a considerable amount of correspondence and had to make numerous tripe to County Clerk’s offices, cemeteries, etc. in order to check on such data. Quite a number of dates of births and/or deaths are still missing from this record.

I have received cooperation and assistance from numerous relatives, for which I am deeply appreciative. It is fitting that I especially thank the following persons for valuable information furnished me:

Miss Nannie E. Dunlap, Churchville, Virginia
Mrs. Nellie Dunlap McCurdy, Alta, Iowa
Mrs. Mary Agnes Argenbright, Waynesboro, Virginia
Miss Elsie J. Collins, Waynesboro, Virginia
Mr. and Mrs. Cecil C. Collins, Churchville, Virginia
Mr. S. Wayne Bailey, Baileysville, West Virginia
Mrs. Anna K. Dunlap Weatherford, Blackstone, Virginia
Mrs. Lorna Stoutamyer Brewer, Bridgewater, Virginia
Mr. and Mrs. Harvey L. Huff, Spring Valley, Ohio
Mrs. Selma A. Henricks Dunlap, North Aurora, Illinois

By the spring of 1974 I had prepared and composed the contents of this booklet on an IBM composer ready for printing on a photocopy press. Then, after a survey was made, I learned that only about 10% of the Samuel and Bailie Dunlap family descendants were really interested in getting a copy of the booklet which would not justify the cost of printing by the photocopy method. This was a bitter disappointment for me! Later, I re-typed the material in script thinking that I could find some printer who would print it on a letter press but was unable to find a printer who would do the job for such a few copies without paying an ex­orbitant price ... another disappointment! In the early part of 1979 I learned where I could obtain a Heyer spirit duplicating machine which would print the material on both sides of the paper if I cut the stencils in elite type, so I re-copied the material on stencils only to be faced with another hurdle! Nowhere could I find duplicating paper of the proper weight to allow Printing on both sides. Now I am in the process of typing ‘the whole thing’ over once more with the assurance that it can be duplicated on a Xerox 9200. We’ll see!

Maurice M. Collins

April 20, 1981

Father:   James Addison Collins
Mother:  Margaret Funk Dunlap (Collins)

Marriage  

• Married: Unmarried

 

Here is a story by Maurice Mackenzie Collins about his grandfather Samuel Alexander Dunlap 

Samuel Alexander Dunlap (1846-1912). It is most likely that of the 16 living grandchildren only three -- Georgia, Elsie and I -- remember our grandfather and grandmother Dunlap; therefore, I think it is quite befitting that I write something about them. Grandmother Dunlap was a very thin woman who weighed only about 120 pounds but was a hard worker ... always busy cooking, working in the garden, sewing, knitting, milking the cows, washing clothes, etc. She was a wonderful cook and never seemed to run out of molasses-cases, sugar-cakes and ‘apple-leather’ for the children. The dining-room table was huge and always loaded at meal time with meat (ham, chicken, fish, etc.), vegetables, homemade bread, various jams and jellies, sauces, a cruet of molasses, a covered dish of honey, pies (gooseberry, huckleberry, rhubarb, cream, cherry, blackberry, apple, etc.), schmierkase, cake, plenty of milk or coffee, cream and butter. Grandma Dunlap was fond of everyone, it seemed, and especially her children and grandchildren. She gathered black walnuts in the fall, hulled and dried them. During the winter she would crack the walnuts and store the kernels for the relatives.

Grandpa Dunlap was a large man and straight as a ram-rod. He wore a well trimmed beard which made him look quite distinguished. He had a voice so strong that it could be heard for a mile. My grandparents kept a dinner-bell and a large conch-shell to call the “hands” for meals but my grandfather could let out a war whoop which would travel farther than the sounds from the bell or conch-shell! I used to ring the dinner-bell but was no good at blowing the conch-shell. Aunt Bobbie was good at blowing the conch-shell. When Grandpa Dunlap was about 15 years old he ‘hired out’ for a neighboring man to serve in the cavalry ‘during the War. The neighbor furnished my grandfather with a white horse and was to pay him $500 when the War was over. After Grandpa was encamped with other cavalrymen the commanding officer called him aside and said: "Dunlap", why did you come here on a white horse? Don’t you know that horse will be a perfect target for the enemy’?” Then, Grandpa tried to sell his horse to other soldiers but no one wanted a white horse. When Grandpa rode his horse into position for combat and the first cannon of the enemy was fired his horse stood on his hind legs and his front feet fell across the back of the horse nearby. The captain ordered: ‘Dunlap, ride that white horse 2 or 3 miles to the rear and stay there”! Thereafter, when a battle was about to begin the commander would order Grandpa to ride his white horse to the rear and he was never in a skirmish for the duration of the War. He said all the other soldiers wanted to buy his horse after they saw what happened but he kept his horse and rode home on him after the close of the War. The neighbor who had supplied the horse never expected to see the horse nor Grandpa again and figured he would never have to pay the $500, but things didn’t turn out the way he thought they would.

When I was a boy nothing seemed to please me more than to visit with my grand­parents. The tanyard with its 26 vats for tanning hides, the bark-mill on the 2nd floor with the long sloping incline where the horses would go up and down (the horses were used to turn the mill and grind the bark) the tread-mill on which a team of horses would walk for hours to furnish rower for a cider-mill and other equipment, the cane-mill where one horse would walk around in a circle pulling a long pole attached to the mill which made the large cylinders revolve while pressing the juice from the cane stalks -- the juice was then boiled down to make sorghum molasses, the broom-mill where one man was kept busy making brooms from the broomcorn, the dam across Swoope Branch which supplied water to operate one of the Rife hydraulic rams which pumped water into the vats, the cobbler shop the harness shop, the weaving room where carpets were woven. Everything was most interesting at the Dunlap place for any boy. Usually, my grandfather had from 5 to 10, or more men working for him and each one seemed to be an expert at his particular job. My grandmother and my mother used to do a lot of weaving and carding. I remember some of the horses names Teddy; George, Barney and Isaac. Then there was the shepherd dog named "Jap" which I was very fond of.

I could write a book on my experiences at Grandpa Dunlap's and at "Cousin Mollie” Dunlap’s homes. The memories are most pleasant, to say the least.