The Dusenbery family name is variously spelled in sources as Dusenberry,
Dusenbery, and Dusenbury.
James himself
spells his last name as Dusenbery and Dusenberry in the journal, and his
tombstone reflects the unique variant Duesenbery. Still, the family's preferred
spelling was Dusenbery, the spelling used consistently on legal documents and
grave markers for the rest of the family. The name is an Anglicization of Van
Doesburg. The Dusenbery's ancestors were Dutch, having emigrated from Doesburg, Gelderlandt, in Holland to New
Amsterdam (New York
City) in 1650. Hendrick Hendrickson Van Doesburg, the earliest
known immigrant in the family, was literate and spent his early years in
America as a town drummer and
member of the Rattle Watch, a force of
night watchmen who carried weapons, lanterns, and wooden rattles that made a
distinctive sound to warn residents of fire or other threats.
Van Doesburg's descendants eventually moved
to Hempstead, Long Island, and then to
New Jersey, where
James Dusenbery's grandfather, Samuel Dusenbery (1758–1829), was born
(Dusenbery and Porcaro 8–24). In the mid-1750s a number of families from
the Hopewell township in New Jersey began emigrating south. They were
forced to make a new start after the "Coxe
Affair," which saw the New
Jersey Supreme Court invalidate deeds to thousands of acres in
Hopewell, requiring owners either
to buy back property that they had already paid for or relocate somewhere else.
These pioneers settled in what was then Rowan
County, NC, along the east bank of the Yadkin River. The area became known as
North Carolina's Jersey Settlement, or "The Jerseys." In about 1789
Samuel Dusenbery and his son John (1777–1851)
by a first marriage also left New
Jersey, together with several other families, including the
Rounsavilles and Brevards, to settle in Rowan
County. In 1790
Samuel married Leodocia Biles Rounsaville in Salisbury, NC, with whom he reared three children—Mary,
Henry,
and Samuel B. By 1796 he had purchased a 76-acre tract of land near present-day
Lexington, NC, and by 1810 the Dusenberys were among 12 families living in that
village. A former soldier in the Revolutionary War and well-educated, Samuel Dusenbery became a merchant and farmer, was elected to
the NC Legislature in 1800, and died in Lexington
in 1829.
Samuel Dusenbery's son and
James Dusenbery's father,
Henry Rounsaville Dusenbery (1794–1852),
was born in Rowan County and became a
successful farmer, tanner, and merchant. He also owned Burkhart plantation outside present-day
Lexington.
Henry Dusenbery was active in civic affairs. He
served as postmaster in 1818, was a justice of the
peace and chairman of the county court, and supported partitioning Rowan County to form
Davidson County in 1822.
When lots establishing the town of Lexington were sold in 1824, he
purchased Lot A on the courthouse square for his store. He also was one of the
nine founding members of the First Presbyterian
Church, formed in 1827. Before his death
he invested in a mill and in the North Carolina
Railroad, which reached Lexington in 1856.
[1] By 1850, according to
census data, he owned 800 acres and approximately $10,000 worth of real estate.
He
married Lydia Davis, the daughter of
Joseph Davis and Susannah McCrorie, in 1819. A daughter Mary was born
to the young couple on August 6, 1820, but she
died at the age of six months and five days on February
11, 1821. By 1837 the Dusenberys had moved
into an elegant eight-room house on what was then known as Davie Street in
Lexington. The family of
William Rainey Holt (1798–1868), a
prominent Lexington physician and
planter, lived across the street in "The
Homestead." The Dusenbery house survives, forming the
interior of the Piedmont Funeral Home at
405 South Main Street in Lexington.
There,
Lydia and
Henry Dusenbery reared seven additional children.
James had three brothers and three sisters:
Edwin Lafayette,
Laura Ann,
Henry
Mcrorie,
Cornelia Lydia,
William Brevard, and
Mary Elizabeth.
The Dusenberys were clearly a family of means and influence. They were able to
educate all of their surviving children, daughters as well as sons. They owned
slaves, 25 according to the 1850 census slave
schedules.
[2] As the biographical notes
for names mentioned in
James's journal
indicate, the Dusenberys numbered among their friends and associates many of
Lexington's elite: physicians,
attorneys, clergymen, hotel owners, and other professional and business people.
Henry and
Lydia Dusenbery were fortunate in living long enough to see all
but one of their children grow into adulthood, some entering successful
marriages and others launching promising careers. Both parents died before the
Civil War and consequently were
spared the grief of losing children to the conflict. They were buried in the
Lexington City Cemetery.
For
James, as for so many others, the war
years held considerable personal grief. His brother
William succumbed to consumption in 1861. His brother
Mack died in
March 1862, and his brother
Fayette was killed at Richmond a month later.
James's youngest sister
Lizzie was twice widowed by 1863. In
1864 three nieces—Alice and Laura
Norcom, daughters of
James's
sister
Laura, and Elizabeth Smith, the infant daughter of his sister
Cornelia—also died.
In addition to mourning the loss of life, survivors of the war suffered
significant economic losses. Investments in Confederate bonds were worthless. Many people resorted to the
barter system for essentials, and work was difficult to find.
James resumed his medical practice in Lexington after the war, but many of his
patients were unable to pay him. At the beginning of the war, according to
census data,
James's assets were
considerable. His real estate holdings were valued at $5100, and his personal
property, including two male slaves, amounted to $4000. By 1870 the value of his real estate had declined to $3240, and his
personal property was worth only $250. By 1886, the
year in which he died, an
inventory of his property
revealed that people owed him $546.01 in uncollectible debts, some incurred
prior to the Civil War. What
happened to his two slaves—men who were 52 and 18 when the war broke out—is
unknown.
Notes
^1. Click here and
here to see two pages
from an 1850-1851 map showing the proposed route of the railroad across
Henry R. Dusenbery's property (North Carolina Maps).
^2. In 1827
Henry R. Dusenbery bought from
Thomas P. Ives the slaves
"Jacob, John and wife, Lettice and Patience, aged 4" (Shoaf). The inventory of Henry R. Dusenbery's estate at his death in
1852 names the following slaves: "Boy
Austin, Mary Jane,
& Jenny Lind, Pleasant, Mariah & child, Jacob, Hagar, Giles, John,
Alfred, Sam, Mary[,] Elvira,
George[,] Fanny & Robert" (Davidson County Records).
Graves of James Lawrence Dusenbery, his sister Cornelia Dusenbery
Smith, and her husband James Goss Smith, Lexington, NC.
Map showing Henry
Dusenbery's store, Lexington, NC.
The Dusenbery
home at 405 South Main Street, Lexington,
NC. Built in 1837 by Henry Rounsaville Dusenbery (1794-1852). The woman sitting
by the front door is probably James
Dusenbery’s sister, Cornelia
Dusenbery Smith (1831-1887). The younger woman may be
Cornelia’s daughter and James’s niece, Grace Cornelia Smith (1867-1939), who married John Keen Hankins in 1887.
An unidentified man
dressed for hunting and Washington McGuire (b. June 1863) behind the
Dusenbery home (on the right) in Lexington, NC.
