The Dunsmore Business College stock certificate circa 1900 (Virginia)

Uncommon college piece. Nice left offset vignette of the college's founder, James Dunsmore. Incorporate in the state of Virginia. Unissued and not cancelled. Dated 19__ and likely the capital stock for the college building constructed in 1900. Measures approximately 11x8 inches.

Dunsmore Business College was founded in Sinks Grove, West Virginia, in 1872 by James Gaston Dunsmore, later relocating to Staunton, Virginia, and operating from a building built in 1900. The college was a destination for students from the Greenbrier Valley and elsewhere to receive business education.  

• Founder: James Gaston Dunsmore
• Founding Date: 1872
• Original Location: Sinks Grove, West Virginia
• Later Location: Staunton, Virginia
• Historic Building: Located on West Beverley Street in Staunton, Virginia, the Dunsmore building was constructed in 1900.
• Legacy: The college was a significant educational institution for many years for students in the Greenbrier Valley.

James Dunsmore grew up on a farm, attended Monroe County’s Rocky Point Academy, and in 1871 he received a Masters Accounts degree from the Eastman National Business College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He returned to Monroe County where he became headmaster of Rocky Point Academy and started Dunsmore Business College that operated in Sinks Grove for eight years.

In 1880 Dunsmore, his wife Sarah Ellen Nickell Dunsmore, and family moved to Staunton where he taught at Hoover’s Select High School for boys, Augusta Female Seminary (later Mary Baldwin College) and Virginia Female Institute (later Stuart Hall). In 1882 he opened Dunsmore Commercial and Business College (later shortened to Dunsmore Business College). The college admitted only men until 1813 when Dunsmore encouraged women to enroll (more than 150 years before the University of Virginia admitted women outside of the nursing program). By 1900 there were nearly 200 students enrolled, and in 1901 the college moved into the newly-built brick building shown in the postcard photo. Graduates of the college were promised jobs in West Virginia’s coal mining and chemical industries as well as banks and other commercial enterprises.

Following Dunsmore’s death in 1922, the college had several owners, enrollment dwindled, and the college closed in 1977. Of the estimated 40,000 students who attended Dunsmore, one notable alumnus is former Virginia governor and West Virginia native, James Hubert Price.