Jennings James Dunlap
Jennings James Dunlap was a younger brother of my Great Grandmother, Estelle Dunlap Hathcock. I have only a vague remembrance of a visit by Uncle Jennings to my grandparents' home when I was very young. It was only when I received some old family papers from a great aunt, over forty years later, that I became aware of his locally celebrated history. I had been singing about him for years!
Jennings was born October 28, 1879 in Norwood, Stanly County, NC , sixth child and fourth son of George Thomas and Anna Eliza Turner Dunlap.
By 1903, he was living in Washington, D.C. and working for the Southern Railway in their Railway Mail Division. He was a mail clerk on the Washington to Atlanta run which was a fast mail and freight train, the fastest in the South. Only employees were on board. His job was to sort and bag the mail and to toss or snag bags at depots down the line. This was considerd a prestigious position for mail clerks and they received extra pay.
On September 27, 1903, the "Fast Mail" train jumped the trestle at Danville, Virginia, falling to the river bed below. It is believed that the wreck was the result of the high speed of the train, down a significant grade just past White Oak Mountain.. The engineer, part of the crew that came on board at Monroe, may have been trying to make up for the delays incurred during earlier legs of the run. There was a contractual $50 penalty if the train was late.
The train was going about thirty-five miles an hour on a steep curve. Part of the train hit the brick walls of the Dan River Mill on the banks of the river. Nine were killed and seven injured. Jennings was seriously hurt and taken with the other injured to the Danville Hospital.
Historian and Editor, Larry G. Aaron, wrote about Jennings in his well-researched book, "The Wreck of the Old 97". "With the mail ready to be unloaded at Danville, Jennings J. Dunlap was resting on some sacks at the rear of his postal car. As the train launched over the trestle, Dunlap believed that being in the back of the car on those sacks 'probably saved me. There were five in our car. Two were killed and two others hurt'. Dunlap later claimed in a newspaper interview about the wreck, 'It happened too fast to get scared. In a split second the train was falling apart. There were splinters everywhere.' "
Jennings, and one of the other surviving mail clerks, Frank Brooks, returned to the Old 97 mail run. Other survivors retired or took stationary jobs. Jennings continued to work for 38 years as the clerk in charge of the mail car. Later, the wreck was immortalized the southern mountain ballad "Wreck of the Old 97". It was the first record to sell over a million copies
In the 1910 census, he was a boarder at the home of Julia Lyddane, in Washington, D. C. She was the mother of his future wife.
He married Minnie E. Lyddane about 1911. Their son, Walter Jennings Dunlap, was born in 1912. Walter was also a Railway Mail Clerk for the U. S. Post Office out of Washington, D.C. He married Virginia E. Graeber and had two sons, Jennings James and Richard J. Dunlap.
Jennings registered for the WWI draft on September 12, 1918. His registration records that he was 39 years old, white, living on N. Capitol Street in Washington D.C., native born with hazel eyes and brown hair. He was married to Minnie and employed by the U. S. Post Office in the railway mail service. He signed the card as Jennings James Dunlap.
In April 1942, he registered in the "Old Man's" draft as 62 years old, born in Norwood, NC. He was recorded as white, married to Minnie, and living at same 1918 address.
Minnie suffered many years from mental illness and spent her last years at St. Elizabeth's hospital in Washington, D. C. This was the first federally funded psychiatric hospital in the U.S.
In later life he moved to a retirement home, Hermitage Methodist, in Alexandria, VA. He died there in 1964 and was buried at Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, D.C.
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