Thomas Lyman Dunnell

(Born: July 5, 1816 - Died: December 27, 1895)

Franklin Lyceum.

Born in Providence, RI. Died in East Greenwich, RI. The son of Jacob Dunnell and Mary Lyman.

Graduated from Brown University in 1836.

He married Elizabeth Breeze. They had at least three children: Thomas Dunnell (born June 11, 1850), Lucy Randolph Dunnell, and Mary Lyman Dunnell.

President of Dunnell Manufacturing Company, a Calico Printer in East Pawtucket, RI.. (The company was founded about 1836 by Royal Sibley and Crawford Allen, but it suffered from considerable financial problems and was soon taken over by Dunnelll’s older brother, Jacob, Jr., and renamed Jacob Dunnell & Co., and then Dunnell Print Works. It remained in business until 1899.)

Dunnell first wrote to H. W. Longfellow, on August 16, 1848, offering $150 for a lecture or a poem “at such time as you may choose during the winter.” Longfellow gracefully declined on August 16, 1848, stating that he had long since retired from the lecture circuit, and citing his poor eyesight when reading by candlelight.