332 True, not very wide publicity was given to the Dunbar-Hunter expedition to the hot springs for at least a hundred years after its completion. If any full-length book of biographical data was released before "Life, Letters and Papers of William Dunbar, 1749-1810" appeared in 1930, this writer has not run across it. The report of the journey up the Ouachita to the hot springs, carefully prepared by Dunbar, was promptly submitted to Jefferson. It was relayed to Congress and a digest of it appeared in Volume 4 of the "American State Papers", covering March 3, 1789, through March 3, 1815, published in 1832 (2). It rated brief mention from time to time in books issued on Arkansas. Josiah Shinn, an Arkansas historian, in History of Arkansas (1898, 1900), introduced Dunbar twice. Half a page was devoted to his trip to the springs. A paragraph from a two page "footnote" on the significance of ginning to the cotton industry said. "The first screw press was invented by William Dunbar of Mississippi. The cost of the first press was over a thousand dollars and caused Mr. Dunbar to write 'I shall endeavor to indemnify myself for the cost by making cotton-seed oil.' This gave rise to another great industry, amounting in the cotton growing states to nearly $30,000,000 each year. Thus one improvement leads to another and the result of all is a general increase of trade and a corresponding increase of comfort and general progress among people (3)." For almost a hundred years the Dunbar report on the Arkansas excursion, usually titled "Journal of a Voyage", lay yellowing in the archives of the American Philosophical Society. In 1904, Houghton-Mifflin brought out a limited edition of the "Jefferson-Dunbar" manuscripts in celebration of the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Of recent years, Eron Rowland, (Mrs. Dunbar Rowland), historian of the Mississippi Society of the Colonial Dames of America, has written extensively of the distinguished explorer-scientist-planter-inventor, much of her material being released through the Press of the Mississippi Historical Society (4). ___________________________ 2. American State Papers, VII, Indian Affairs, I, 731-743. 3. Josiah Shinn, History of Arkansas (1900), 112n. 4. Mrs. Dunbar Rowland, Life, Letters, and papers of William Dunbar (1930). This paper is based largely on this compilation.           Contents  Words  Study Questions  Related Sites Next