Routt County CO Archives Biographies.....Dunckley, John  April 8, 1857 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net January 10, 2006, 4:28 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     John Dunckley, whose name is a household word in Routt county and

throughout a considerable extent of the surrounding country as a very

progressive, enterprising and successful stock and ranch man, is a native of

Huron county, in the province of Ontario, Canada, where he was born on April 8,

1857.  His parents, George and Grace Dunckley, natives of Ireland, emigrated to

Canada at the age of ten years and were later married there.  They moved from

there to Kansas in 1868 and to Colorado in 1891.  The mother died in this state

on June 2, 1892, and the father is now living at Boulder.  He has been a farmer

from his youth, and has taken a leading part in local politics as a Republican.

 Fourteen children were born of their union, all of whom are living.  They are

John, Rowland I., Richard H., George W., William F., Susan (Mrs. George

Campbell), Robert C., Thomas E., Edward, Anna (Mrs. Sershun), Walter H., Ella M.

(Mrs. Brooks), Charles and Nelson.  The parents belonged to and reared their

children in the Methodist church.  John, the first born of their offspring,

received a common-school education and aided them in the work of the farm until

he reached the age of twenty-three, then moved to Kansas and after farming for a

few months in Ottawa county, that state, removed in 1880 to Colorado and took up

his residence at Canon City.  Here he furnished ties for the Denver & Rio Grande

Railroad under contract for two years, then returned to Kansas, where he worked

on farms for wages until 1888.  In that year he again became a resident of this

state, locating on his present ranch of one hundred and sixty acres in Routt

county, which he secured by pre-emption and which is eighteen miles southeast of

Hayden.  He cultivates one hundred and twenty acres of his land with good

results in hay, grain and vegetables, and with breadth of view for his own

welfare and a patriotic and public-spirited interest in the substantial and

enduring good of the stock interests in the county, he maintains fine herds of

thoroughbred Hereford and Shorthorn cattle, through which he has aided

materially and extensively in raising the standard of stock in his 

neighborhood.  His ranch is one of the best of its size in Routt county, and all

its operations are carried on with skill, intelligence and according to the most

advanced thought in the business.  The land was wild and uncultivated when he

took it up, unprofitably gay with wild sage and cherry growths and without the

semblance of a human habitation or showing the mark of any attempt at

cultivation.  He has enriched it with good buildings, and, seconding the bounty

of nature, always available to proper persuasions, has transformed the land from

its state of rude barbarism to one of smiling plenty fruitful in all the

concomitants of cultivated life.  If the denizens of the older communities who

build them greater and multiply their productiveness are entitled to credit,

much more is one who, like Mr. Dunckley, steps boldly into the wilderness and

summons it to the service of man and a new people worthy of all regard and

esteem; and this he enjoys in a marked degree among those who have witnessed and

shared his labors and his triumphs.

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/routt/bios/dunckley120gbs.txt

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