Dunbar, John, clergyman, missionary to the Pawnee Indians, and first treasurer of Brown county, Kan., was born at Palmer, Mass., March 3, 1804. In 1832 he was graduated at Williams College, and later he was graduated at the Auburn Theological Seminary. While a student at the latter institution he received an appointment as missionary to the western Indians; was ordained at Ithaca, N. Y., May 1, 1834, and on the 5th left there for the scene of his labors, with instructions to cross the Rocky mountains to the Nez Perces. Upon arriving at St. Louis on the 23d, he learned that the party of traders with whom he was to travel had already left for the West, and this changed his entire plan. At St. Louis he was informed that the Pawnee tribe needed missionaries, and he decided to go there. As soon as possible he reported at the mission and agency at Bellevue, 9 miles above the mouth of the Platte river, on the west bank of the Missouri, and began his work as missionary. In Sept., 1836, he returned to Massachusetts, and while there superintended the printing of a book of 74 pages in the Pawnee language. On Jan. 12, 1837, he married Miss Esther Smith, and the following spring returned to Bellevue, where he and his wife began housekeeping in an old trading house. Later he went to Holt county, Mo., but preferring a residence in a free state, and confident that Kansas was to be admitted as such, he removed to Brown county, Kan., in 1856, and located on the Wolf river, about 2 miles west of the town of Robinson. On March 16, 1857, he was appointed treasurer to the board of county commissioners, being the first man ever to hold that office in the county. Neither Mr. Dunbar nor his wife lived long after their removal to Kansas. She died on Nov. 4, 1856, and his death occurred on Nov. 3, 1857.