Lemuel M. Dunton was born in 1834 in upstate New York where he became a highly successful dealer in cattle and sheep. He and his family lived in the east until 1870 when they moved to Missouri and afterwards to Kansas. He was a sheep rancher in both Missouri and Kansas. Lemuel Dunton and wife had two sons, George and Harry. George C. Dunton was born in Naples, New York on Feb. 8, 1865. He graduated from the Canandaigua Academy of New York in 1884, aged 19 years. George moved to Breckenridge, Caldwell County, Missouri where he formed the partnership known as Dunton Bros. The junior partner in this enterprise was George's brother, Harry I. Dunton, aged 14 years in 1884. The Breckenridge partnership was short lived. Young Harry was homesick and soon returned to New York. By 1886, George was in South Dakota where he worked as a clerk for a time and later established a store of his own at Langford. He subsequently purchased a hardware store but eventually became cashier of the First National Bank in Webster, South Dakota.

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