This month marks the anniversary of his death, when he was found on March 6, 1868. Duncan had come to Albion in the spring of 1835 from New York. He came here as a peddler of goods which he had purchased at an auction of merchandise damaged by a fire in New York in December, 1834. He ran out of merchandise and subsequently purchased his land from the U.S. government.

Duncan began to act queerly, and Alienates wondered about the background of this man. One source wrote shortly after his death in 1868, “What caused him to live in this manner has always been a mystery here. It was supposed by some that he was disappointed in love and by some that he had committed crime and had chosen a life of seclusion to shun detection. Every effort to trace his nativity always proved unsuccessful. So he has lived worse than a brute and died equally as bad.”

Dr. Elmore Palmer wrote in 1908, “Everything clearly indicated that he never washed himself or his rags. Filth in the greatest amount and odours the rankest of the foul are still perceptible to the writer’s olfactories.”

In early March 1868, a winter storm hit the area. A Mr. Perrine went to visit Duncan, and found him frozen to death, sitting on the floor against his fireplace, covered with snow. Perrine hurried back to Albion where he contacted Fitz Williams, who organized a group of men which included the Coroner, Dr. Willoughby O’Donoughue.

The group found that “Old Dunk” had $11.18 in his pocketbook, some corn and cornmeal upon which he fed during his last days, and some old sales receipts from 1834 when he had lived in New York. The body was taken to the Albion Fire House, located in downtown Albion, presently 113 S. Superior St. His body was placed in a large tub of water to thaw out. An inquest jury determined that Duncan must have been sick and died of natural causes. One witness stated, “After the clothes were soaked off, the skin actually looked like a scurvy hog and as the frost came out the dirt would crack off in chunks.”