Born April 5, 1882 Married May 29, 1903, at Dagupan, P.I., Hermogena Esquerra, a Spaniard, whose father and brother were Spanish soldiers. Lieutenant Gunnison Died of Cholera July 12, 1906, at Maccabelee, P.I.
Lieutenant De Forest Myron Gunnison enlisted from Chicago at the age of seventeen in the United States Signal Corps. Company I. He was sent to Angel Island, San Francisco Bay, and thence to Manila, P.I. Seven months after his arrival in Manila, he was promoted by General Otis to the rank of sergeant. This promotion was for bravery in volunteering to repair telegraph wires which had been cut by a band of insurgents. The first to respond to the call for volunteers, he was commissioned to perform the perilous task alone and at the risk of his life. He was successful, repairing the break and re-establishing communication before being discovered by the hostile natives. He served in Manila until the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in China, when he was sent to China, and while there was in active service. He was promoted to the rank of quarter sergeant for bravery in carrying a message from Tin Kin to a point in the interior. He returned to the Philippines with the 9th New York Infantry and after having served his three years was honorably discharged. Immediately after his discharge. He joined the metropolitan police force of Manila, in which he served one year. He then went into the constabulary force. With the rank of third lieutenant and was stationed at Dagupan. Soon after joining the constabulary he was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant for a third distinguished act of bravery, in which he displayed daring and strategy unusual in one of his years. While returning one night from the home of the president of the village of Dagupan, where he had been entertained at dinner, he met twenty native soldiers of the constabulary force., fully armed and carrying ammunition, who informed him that they had been ordered to another post. Gunnison, being familiar with the plans of the constabulary and suspecting that this was not so, ordered the band to stack arms and go with him into an eating house for refreshments. From force of habit the Philippine soldiers obeyed their lieutenant. After he had thus delivered them of their arms, he drew his six-shooter, and covering them, ordered them back to quarters. He was thus successful in frustration their plan of deserting the constabulary to join an outlaw band in the mountains. Gunnison was afterward promoted to the rank of first lieutenant because of his proficiency in the difficult Tagalog Language, which he had acquired through persistent effort. He had also mastered the Spanish language and native dialects. Lieutenant Gunnison was well fitted, both in physique and character, for the service in which he excelled. He stood over six feet in height, and was erect and soldierly in bearing. He was ambitious to rise and entered with all his energies into the duties of his service. In this last letter to his parents, (Jay Hoyt and Flora Gunnison), Written May 16, 1906, he told them that he had taken the examinations for a captaincy and passed successfully, with five points to the good.
Here is my pencil drawing of De forest Myron Gunnison Brother to Harry Averill Gunnison our Great Great Grand frather
