My Genealogy Hound

L. B. CUNNINGHAM. The father of the subject of this sketch was Samuel J. Cunningham, born in Virginia December 5, 1792, and his father a native of the same state, his name also being Samuel. Samuel Cunningham, Sr., removed to Georgia in 1795, thence to Maury county, Tenn. (about 1820), where he died some years later. Samuel J. was married to Miss Dovey Stinson, a native of North Carolina, September 20, 1827. Eleven children were the fruits of this union, five daughters and six sons. The mother died December 19, 1849, and with two daughters and one son are buried upon the old farm near Cornersville, Tenn.

The subject of this sketch, whose full name in Lyman Beecher Cunningham, named for Dr. Lyman Beecher, was born in Giles county, Tenn., September 3, 1844. In April, 1853, his father removed to West Grove, Davis county, Iowa, where he died in July, 1879, in his eighty-sixth year. The father was a successful farmer and miller, and also mastered several trades, among which were those of black-smithing and cabinet or furniture-making. The family now have articles of furniture made by him sixty years ago. He was a Presbyterian in religion, having been an elder in the church from early manhood till death. In politics he was a whig and republican.

Lyman B. followed the usual duties of a farmer boy in summer and attended school in winter until December 25, 1863, when he enlisted in Company A, Third Iowa cavalry, to serve in defense of the Union and against those of his native South arrayed for its destruction. He was anti-slavery and in favor of his native state remaining in the Union. He participated in the various battles in which his regiment was engaged, a regiment second to none for gallantry, and served with credit to himself and country until mustered out at Atlanta, Ga., August 9, 1865; he was discharged August 19th at Davenport, Iowa, reaching home August 21st. He lost two brothers in defense of the Union, Cyrenius T. and Orosius A., the former a member of Company A, Third Iowa cavalry, who received a wound in the neck at the battle of Pea Ridge, Ark., in March, 1862, which caused his death February 7, 1866, and the latter a member of Company B, Thirtieth Iowa infantry, who died of sickness at Memphis, Tenn., October 22, 1863.

Our subject entered school at the Wesleyan University at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, in the spring of 1866, graduating from that institution in June, 1870. He taught school one year at West Grove, Iowa, and one year at Unionville, Iowa, and in August, 1872, removed to the new village of Kearney Junction — now Kearney, Nebr. — where he, in connection with Mandel & Clapp, began the publication of the Kearney Junction Times. This paper is now developed into the Buffalo county Journal and the Kearney Daily Journal, of which Mr. Cunningham was sole proprietor until a stock company was organized June 15, 1890. He also took a soldier’s homestead and has improved this and also another farm in the vicinity of Kearney. He took an active part in the upbuilding of Kearney, being ever alive to its interests and ever working for its advancement. He was a charter member of the Presbyterian church, in which he is still active. His paper is known as a stanch advocate of republican principles, temperance and sobriety, good morals, decency and justice, and is ever known as a clean sheet to enter the family circle. It is independent and fearless and a bitter opposer of anything akin to deception, fraud, folly and pretension. Wherever read it is known as a reliable newspaper, the farmers having long since learned to obtain the facts, as well as could be ascertained, from that journal. Although it is uphill business conducting a newspaper in a new country, yet by economy and frugality, and by the aid of his excellent wife, he has been enabled to accumulate property to the amount of several thousand dollars. September 3, 1874, he was married to Miss Mary E. Clapp, a lady of excellent qualities of mind and heart, a graduate of the Ladies’ Seminary of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and a daughter of William D. and Elizabeth Clapp, natives of North Carolina and Indiana, the daughter having been born to them November 1, 1851. Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham have been blessed with but three children — Carl Shannon, born in 1875, became a bright, loving dutiful boy, who died April 7, 1884, bitterly mourned by broken-hearted parents and a large circle of friends; Ralph Elmo was born July 1, 1887, is still living, and is a bright, promising child, full of life and energy; and third, a daughter, born July 29, 1890, who is named Lois Be, a healthy and apparently promising child. Mr. Cunningham has truly had a helpmeet in his estimable wife, who is noted for her energy, economy, tact, skill and christian integrity. The couple are highly esteemed and respected in their community.