Daniel Dunklin was born Jan. 14, 1790, in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Sarah Margaret (Sullivan) and Joseph Dunklin Jr. Joseph died in 1805, and the following year the family moved to Caldwell County, Kentucky. It was here that Daniel began reading William Blackstone in hopes of becoming a lawyer.
In 1810, Daniel and his mother moved to what would become Missouri Territory, and two years later Dunklin served in the War of 1812. After the war, Dunklin returned to Kentucky to marry his childhood sweetheart, Emily Willis "Pamela" Haley, on May 2, 1815. The couple returned to Potosi, where Dunklin made his living engaged in mining, building and running a tavern, and practicing law.
Dunklin's political career began when he was appointed Washington County sheriff in 1815. When Missouri became a state he was elected a member of the state constitutional convention and later served one year in the Missouri House of Representatives. Dunklin returned to business until he was elected lieutenant governor in 1828. He was elected governor in 1832. As governor, he was against the Second Bank of the United States and high tariffs, but he was in favor of internal improvements at the state level.
In 1833, Dunklin appointed a commission on education. Their duty was to determine the needs of the state and draw up a plan for public education facilities. Dunklin received their report in 1834 and, with his urging, it was approved by the Legislature in 1835. This action established a state board of education and a means of financing it. It also made Missouri a leader in education, even outdoing states back east. And it was Gov. Dunklin who laid the groundwork for the University of Missouri when he recommended land sales to fund a state university.
While Dunklin was governor, Missouri's debt went down and nine new counties were created. When the Missouri State Penitentiary was built, it was Dunklin's administration that oversaw its construction.
In 1836, President Andrew Jackson appointed Dunklin surveyor general for Missouri and Illinois, which caused the governor to resign three months early. For the next four years, Dunklin surveyed most of the counties below the Missouri River. He was also on the commission that settled the Missouri-Arkansas border.
In 1840, Dunklin sold off everything in Potosi and moved to Herculaneum, Missouri, where he spent the rest of his life as a wealthy gentleman farmer. In 1844, he was caught out during a severe storm and, soaked to the bone, developed pneumonia. He died shortly after on Aug. 25, 1844.
Elizabeth Davis was born and raised in Cooper County, Missouri, and has written Historically Yours for the Boonville Daily News since April 2008. In celebration of Missouri's upcoming Bicentennial, she syndicated her column statewide in September 2018 and encourages readers all over the Show Me State to submit topic suggestions for future columns to [email protected].