Dripping with history, Jackson County, Florida, is a base for several groups focured on heritage and events of the past. One thing it didn’t have, until recently, was an SAR.

Driving over the very site of the Battle of Marianna to get there, guests visited Jim’s Buffet to witness the institution of the William Dunaway Chapter of the Florida Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, something its founders say took years to accomplish.

The first set of chapter officers are mostly members of the Dunaway lineage, tracing their tie to William Dunaway, a foot soldier in the 5th Virginia Regiment during the American Revolution.

The 2008 Chapter officers are Harry “Hap” Dunaway, president; Robert “Kenny” Dunaway, vice-president and secretary/treasurer; Fletcher Dunaway, second vice-president; James “Jim” Dunaway, chaplain and Larry Clere, registrar/historian.

“Fletcher, Kenny – we made it.” Hap Dunaway said, beginning his first speech as president.

“Since the first time we talked about doing this starting at Washington D.C., to this day, it has been a long road; but we made it.”

“We back-tracked from D.C. to a little town in Georgia, where William Dunaway had settled and was buried,” said Fletcher. “It was in Wilkes County, Georgia. It was a Sunday, I stopped at this house and an older woman answered the door. She took me to her husband, and he walked me about a football-field’s length to a family cmetery. There was William’s gravestone.”

“He eventually went to flight in Georgia to earn a land grant from the Georgia colony,” said Fletcher. “And the land he settled and was buried on is the land he was granted after fighting for America.

Fletcher said that anyone who knows of such gravesites may contact the William Dunaway SAR at 850-594-3338, 594-6664, 594-7600 or 593-5715. “If we can identify the gravesites as belonging to a soldier of the American Revolution, we can hold an honor ceremony at the grave,” said Fletcher.

Photo caption: From left, brothers Robert “Kenny” Dunaway, Harry “Hap” Dunaway, and Fletcher Dunaway stand for the institution of the William Dunaway Chapter Florida Society Sons of the American Revolution. The chapter’s namesake, William Dunaway, settled and was buried in Wilkes County, Georgia.