Although he was born in Missoula, Montana it could be easy to claim that David Cushing Duniway was born to be Oregon’s first State Archivist, an advocate for historic preservation and the first director of the Mission Mill Museum.
His grandmother, Abigail Scott Duniway, was a leader for the women’s suffrage movement and fought for 40 years to get women the right to vote in Oregon. His great uncle, Harvey Whitefield Scott, was an editor of the Oregonian newspaper for 40 years, the first president of the Oregon Historical Society and wrote books on Oregon history. David’s father, Clyde Augustus Duniway, was a history teacher before becoming a university president.
David Duniway obtained a degree from Carleton College in Minnesota before getting his master’s degree in history and a Library Certificate from the University of California at Berkley. His career started with a position at the National Archives in Washington D.C. in 1937. He was recruited in 1946 to become the first State Archivist for Oregon. The position was part of the staff at the Oregon State Library.
Prior to the legislature creating the position, there was no unified approach to government record keeping. Some of the records of our state had been lost due to carelessness and the fire that destroyed the State Capitol Building in 1935. Some records were held by state agencies, some were held by the legislative assembly, and some were held by private individuals.
The Secretary of State requested that the Oregon Historical Society hold the records from the Provisional and Territorial Governments (before we became a state) due to storage space. It became Duniway’s job to gather the records and organize them. He was given a budget of $15,000, one assistant and the basement of the State Library to store the collection.
Duniway made personal visits to state agencies to obtain their records. He worked with the Oregon Legislature to improve record keeping (including retention of the minutes from committee meetings). He established policies and procedures for agencies to save records and preserve documents. By the end of his first year, there were 406 cubic feet of records in the Archives. When he retired from the position in 1972 there were close to 50,000 cubic feet of archives and state records.
Duniway also spent time involved in the Salem community and working on historic preservation. He became the president of the Salem Art Association and in 1948 helped establish the Asahel Bush House Museum. In 1950, he helped establish the Marion County Historical Society and served as its first president. The society worked on publishing articles about Oregon history, providing educational programs and saving historic buildings. They are credited with saving the 1841 Jason Lee house and the Thomas Kay Woolen Mills. The mill became the Mission Mill Museum and David Duniway, after retiring as State Archivistm, became the director. The mill, the Jason Lee house and other historic buildings that were moved to the grounds are now known as the Willamette Heritage Center. They honor his memory with the David Duniway Historical Scholarship Excellence Award.
In 1971 Duniway and his wife, Frances led efforts to establish Deepwood as another historical house museum. Duniway published a book about Dr. Luke Port, the person responsible for the building of Deepwood.
In his retirement, Duniway continued to write articles about Oregon history and published two books about Salem – Glimpses of Historic South Salem and South Salem Past. He died in 1993. Services were held at Deepwood.