Poindexter Dunn

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Poindexter Dunn (1834–1914) was an American lawyer, cotton planter, Confederate Army officer, and Democratic politician from Arkansas. Born in Wake County, North Carolina, he moved with his family to Limestone County, Alabama, in 1837 and later studied at Jackson College in Columbia, Tennessee, graduating in 1854. He settled in St. Francis County, Arkansas, where he practiced law after being admitted to the bar in 1867. Before the Civil War, he was elected to Arkansas’s House of Representatives in 1858 and was a slave owner and cotton planter.

During the Civil War he served as a captain in the Confederate States Army. After the war, Dunn continued his law practice in Forrest City, Arkansas. He entered national politics as a Democrat and was elected to the United States House of Representatives, representing Arkansas’s 1st district, from 1879 to 1889 (the Forty-sixth through the Fortieth Congresses; five terms). He chaired the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries in the 50th Congress. He did not seek renomination in 1888 and moved to Los Angeles, California, where he practiced law.

In the 1890s Dunn held a role as a special commissioner to prevent frauds on the customs revenue and moved to New York City in 1893. He later lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, working on railroad construction, before settling in Texarkana, Texas, in 1905. He died there on October 12, 1914, at the age of 79 and was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.

Married twice, Dunn had two daughters, Anna Mae Estes Dunn and Dorothea Dunn (Dorothea died in infancy). His first wife was Ellenora Patton Dunn; his second wife was Anna Fussell Dunn.