BIO: David S. CUNNING, Huntingdon County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Denise Phillips

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Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley: 
Comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata and Perry, 
Pennsylvania, Containing Sketches of Prominent and Representative 
Citizens and Many of the Early Settlers.  Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. 
Runk & Co., 1897, pages 127-128.
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  DAVID S. CUNNING, Morris township, Huntingdon county, Pa., son of 
Thomas and Catharine (Stewart) Cunning, was born March 19, 1851, on the 
farm on which he now resides.  His grandfather, John Cunning, was a 
native of Pennsylvania, who is supposed to have left the State and gone 
to Ohio soon after his marriage to Martha Fergus, a native of Scotland.  
They settled on the Indian Reservation, and while living there had four 
children:  Eliza; Thomas; John; and James.  After the husband's death 
in 1814 or 1815, Mrs. Cunning returned to Pennsylvania with Thomas, her 
only living child, and spent the rest of her life among her brothers 
and sisters in Morris township (afterwards Catharine township), Blair 
county.  She lived to an advanced age, dying shortly before her 
eightieth milestone was reached.  Thomas Cunning, father of David, was 
educated in the public schools and was all his life a farmer.  For 
several years he lived on rented farms, but after his marriage to 
Catharine Stewart, he purchased the homestead farm on which he ever 
afterwards resided.  Their children were:  Martha, who died young; 
David S.; and James, who also died early.  The father and mother were 
devout members of the Presbyterian church, the father filling worthily 
the office of elder for many years.  Honest, frugal and industrious, 
they were highly esteemed by a large circle of friends and neighbors.  
The father died in 1894, and is buried at Williamsburg, Pa.  The mother 
preceded him by thirteen or fourteen years.
  David S. Cunning was educated in the public schools of his native 
township, and in those of Catharine township, Blair county.  At the age 
of thirteen he began working for his father on the farm and continued 
to render him service until his marriage to Louisa, a daughter of Hugh 
Dunn, Blair county.  Soon after this he took up his residence on his 
uncle's farm in Catharine township, where he lived for eight years.  At 
the end of this he moved to the home farm with his father, which since 
the death of the latter he now owns.  Their children now living are:  
David Stewart; Bertha C.; and Thomas C.  Mr. Cunning is an ardent 
Republican, and has been school director several terms.