Our Bunnell/Bonnell Ancestry
George J. Farris, 2025The Original Bonnell Family in America
The beginning of our Bunnell line is with a William Bonnell who married Ann Wilmot in the New Haven settlement in 1640. They had several children and most have been documented for several generations. This William and Ann were my 8th great grandparents. One of their sons was Nathaniel Bonnell who married Susanna Whitehead and moved to New Jersey in 1664 as a member of the original incorporating organization of the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Nathaniel and Susanna were my 7th great grandparents. Their original home still exists in Elizabeth and is maintained by the local Historical Society. During part of 1959 I lived one block from this house and passed it every day. Nathaniel had seven children and most are well documented. The least well documented is Samuel, who was my 6th great grandfather.
Samuel (1) Bunnell
Samuel lived on a farm southwest of Elizabeth in the general area of current day Linden, New Jersey (where I worked for Exxon for two years 1959-1961). His wife was named Abigail and they had one son named Benjamin. William Austin, who documented the Bonnell families in his book, “The Bonnell Families In America” was not able to find very much about Samuel. In 1798 Samuel Rose of Newark listed Abigail as his “daughter-in-law” – so she may have been the widow of a Rose before her marriage to Samuel. In 1712 Abigail witnessed the will of Samuel Dod in Newark. In 1714 Benjamin Bonnell was bound to Anthony Olliffe with the consent of his mother Abigail. Abigail was also listed in a court case in the Essex County General Sessions Court in August, 1716. Austin speculated that Samuel and Abigail had divorced. Austin stated that a Samuel Bonnell had died in 1715. However, that death was actually a 10 year old nephew who died in the area of the Connecticut Farms, farms originally owned by Nathaniel and operated by another son. In fact, when we researched this Bunnell line in 2014 – 2018 we determined that Samuel had separated from Abigail and moved to the Woodbridge community on the other side of the Rahway River with another women named Susannah. There are a few further records of Samuel(1) in Woodbridge over several years up to at least 1726. A key piece of information is found in the old records of Woodbridge. On 26 May 1707 the birth of Samuel Bunnel, Jr. to Samuel Bunnell and his wife Susannah was recorded. Since Samuel was later fined for “living with another man’s wife” they were apparently not legally married. This Samuel, Jr. who I designate as Samuel(2) was my 5th great grandfather – later the father of William Bunnell, my 4th great grandfather. Samuel(1) moved farther south and by 1728 was in Somerset County, N.J. Since the courthouse there burned there are few local records for him. The last record we have for him is in 1739 in the will of John Balm.
Samuel (2) Bunnell
The first record we have found after his birth record that’s clearly for this Samuel was in 1732 in which he was listed as a blacksmith in Somerset County. He later migrated farther south along the King’s Highway toward Princeton, ending up in the Penn’s Neck area just across Stoney Brook from Princeton where he remained for many years. He was a blacksmith but also was appointed a Constable for Windsor Township of Middlesex County by 1744 and held a Constable position until about 1762. During the years that the family lived in Penn’s Neck both Samuel, and later his son Samuel(3) worked as blacksmiths and were frequently in debt to various merchants in Trenton who supplied them with iron and other material. So they appear in court records over these years as merchants attempted to collect money owed them. Penn’s Neck was at the extreme west end of the very large Windsor Township as it existed at that time. In 1761 the family moved to Hightstown at the eastern end of Windsor Township. There were two Constables for Windsor and, at that time Samuel(2) became the Constable for the eastern part of Windsor. But he also acquired an inn and public house in Hightstown which he operated for about two years before selling it in 1763. There was a mill directly across the road from the inn and it appears that his son William Bunnell worked at the mill since, when the mill owner died, William showed up in the probate record as being owed money by the estate. In the same record Samuel(2) was listed as being in debt to the mill owner. Also, by that time Samuel(2)’s daughter Anna had married Jacob Wright who likewise shows up as being in debt to the mill owner. Finally in 1766 his debts caught up with him and there was a court order for the sheriff to confiscate all of Samuel’s possessions to compensate his creditors. There was a similar court order involving Jacob Wright at the same time. In New Jersey, at that time, debtors were placed in prison if they could not pay off their debts – which, of course, made it impossible for them to earn money to pay the debts. People in that position often packed up and left the colony – which is what Samuel(2) along with his son William and son-in-law Jacob Wright did. They moved to Loudoun County in the Virginia colony. His son Samuel(3) chose to stay in New Jersey and was in debtors prison as of 1770.
The Rossell/Rozell Connection
The Rosselles had lived in Huntingdon County, New Jersey, and these included the family of Peter Rossell, Sr. Apparently, the Samuel Bunnell family had some interaction with the Rosselles during the time that they lived in Penn’s Neck quite near Huntingdon County. In about 1761 the Peter Rossell family moved first to Frederick County, Maryland and then in 1763 across the Potomac River to Loudoun County in the Virginia colony. Peter and his wife Anna bought 336 acres in Cameron Parish between Bull Run and Elk Licking Run in 1763 and then sold 170 acres of it in 1765. When Samuel(2) Bunnell and part of his family fled New Jersey they joined the Rosselles in Loudoun County. For the next several decades the Bunnells and Rosselles migrated together. Peter Rossell owned land in the places where they lived and we assume that William Bunnell worked for him as a blacksmith. But they obviously were also personal friends, and later Peter Rossell’s grandson, Peter Rozell, married Sarah Wright, daughter of Anna Bunnell Wright – William’s sister. The William Bunnell/Peter Rossell connection lasted throughout their lives – eventually into Merrcer County, Kentucky where William was a bondsman for the marriage of a nephew of Peter and where Peter’s death in 1802 is recorded in the minutes of the Shawnee Run Baptist Church of which several of the Bunnells were members (including Anne Bunnell Farris and her husband John Farris). In 1768 -1771 Samuel Bunnell, William Bunnell, Jacob Wright and Peter Rossell all appear in Loudoun County tax lists. In June, 1772, Peter and Anna Rossell sold their remaining 166 acres in Loudoun County and, at that time, were listed as residence of Spotsylvania County, Virginia. The Bunnells and Jocob Wright had also moved with them.
The Bunnells in Spotsylvania County, Virginia
In most of the records for Peter Rossell in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, he is listed as Roswell. In April, 1772, he bought two tracts of land - 215 acres and 100 acres. In the second transaction on April 23, 1772, William Bonnell and Jacob Wright were witnesses. This land was on Plentiful Run in Berkeley Parish near the southwest corner of Spotsylvania County. Peter and Anna Rossell owned that land until selling it on June 23, 1784 when they were listed as residents of Albemarle County. We assume that the Bunnells lived on part of that land and worked for the Rossells. On March 20, 1777 William and Samuel Bonnell along with Henry Coleman were appointed administrators of the estate of Jacob Wright. Anna, the widow of Jacob Wright, and Dennis Wright, son of Jacob, declined to administer the estate and presumably preferred to have Anna’s father and brother administer it. Dennis Wright remained in Spotsylvania County when the rest of the family moved to Albemarle. He later moved to Mercer County, Kentucky several years before the William Bunnell family arrived there in 1798 and remained there until about 1807 when he moved to Maury County, Tennessee. He later moved to Bedford/Lincoln County, Tennessee where he rejoined his sister, Sarah who had moved there with her husband Peter Rozell, grandson of Peter and Anna Rossell.
During 1777 William and Samuel Bunnell were both signatories of a petition. This is the last record that has been found for Samuel(2) Bunnell and I assume that he died shortly after that. In 1779 both William Bunnell and Peter Rossell were signatories of a petition in Spotsylvania. They were both also signatories of a petition in 1785 in Albemarle County. The latter was the historic petition authored by James Madison advocating freedom of religion in Virginia which led directly to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Rossells and William Bunnell show up in the first available tax lists for Spotsylvania County in 1782 and 1783 before they migrated to Albemarle County.
William Bunnell in Albemarle, Rockbridge and Botetourt Counties, Virginia
Peter and Anna Rossell as well as some of their sons owned land in Albemarle County. Their son Nehemiah Rossell had first moved there in 1777. There are very few records for William Bunnell in Albemarle but the most important one is the marriage of one of his daughters in 1785. That marriage on 22 July 1785 was of Anne Bunnell to John Farris with the marriage bond being signed by John Farris and Wm. Bonnel. (That is how William signed his name on several documents). Again, I assume that William worked for the Rossells as a blacksmith in Albemarle before moving to Rockbridge County by 1787. He remained in Rockbridge County through 1794. During that period another of his daughters, Rebecca, married Joseph Lyon in Rockbridge in 1792. Also, Anna Bunnell Wright who, along with her daughter Sarah, had migrated with the William Bunnell family was married there to William Arnold on 17 May 1787. In two newspaper articles later in 1791 William Arnold stated that Ann had left his bed and board and that he would no longer be responsible for any debts that she incurred. That was the usual manner of announcing a divorce in those days. Anna continued to use the surname Arnold but moved to Botetourt County along with the William Bunnell family in 1795. Her daughter Sarah married Peter Rozell in Botetourt in 1795. This Peter was the son of Nehemiah Rossell, one of the sons of Peter and Anna Rossell. William Bunnell appears in the Botetourt tax lists in 1795,1796.and 1797. In the 1797 tax list his oldest son Samuel has come of age and is listed separately. There are two mentions of William in the Botetourt court records. One was a debt suit and the other one was a land dispute in 1797 between two other parties in which William Bunnell and the wife of William Bunnell were to be deposed as witnesses. However the suit was dismissed so there are no other details. This is the only reference that we have found to the wife of William Bunnell and we have not been able to determine her name. The naming convention apparently used for the children of their daughter Mary may provide a clue that her first name may have been Phoebe.
The Bunnell/Farris Connection
John and William Farris were two brothers who originated in Hanover County, Virginia, according to a Revolutionary War pension claim by John Farris filed in 1834. By 1785 John and William were in Albemarle County where William shows up in a tax list and where John was married to Anne Bunnell. It has been relatively easy to track John Farris after that because he migrated with the William Bunnell family and shows up in the same tax lists as being enumerated on the same day as the Bunnells in Rockbridge and Botetourt Counties in Virginia and then in Mercer County, Kentucky, 1799-1805. However, tracking William Farris is more difficult because he migrated separately and there were several other men named William Farris migrating at the same time and we haven’t been able to definitively separate records of them. While we believe that he was the William Farris who shows up in the area that later became Woodford and Franklin County, Kentucky, from 1789 through 1795 we have no proof that this was the same person. However, by 1802 he shows up in Mercer County, Kentucky court records along with John Farris and some of the Bunnells – but he is not in any of the Mercer County tax lists until 1809. After that, William and John migrated together, along with several of the Bunnells to Green County, Kentucky and later both families migrated to Franklin County, Illinois. We have not found a marriage record for this William Farris but it is obvious that his wife “Polly” was Mary Bunnell, sister of Anne Bunnell Farris and a daughter of William Bunnell. This has been verified by DNA matches of descendants with descendants of other Bunnells as well as from other empirical evidence. William and “Polly” Farris were my 3rd great grandparents.
The Bunnells in Mercer County, Kentucky
From 1799 through 1805 Mercer County tax lists include William Bunnell and John Farris. As Williams sons came of age they also began to show up in these records as did son-in-law Joseph Lyon. Several of the Bunnells also show up in the fragmentary records of Shawnee Run Baptist Church over that period. From the tax lists it appears that the William Bunnell family lived and worked on the David Williams plantation about a mile north of the Shawnee Springs in Mercer County. Then, after 1805, William Bunnell disappears from records and it is presumed that he died. And several of the sons of William also disappear from Mercer records at the same time and begin to appear in records farther west in Green, Hardin, Barren and Adair Counties. The church records also show that John and Anne Farris withdrew from membership in Shawnee Run Baptist Church at that time. However, John did return to Mercer County tax lists in 1808 and 1809 before moving to Green County along with the William Farris family. Of the Bunnell children only Jonathan and Samuel remained in Mercer County – although Jonathan later moved to Missouri. One son, Joseph Bonnell, lived across the Kentucky River in Jessamine County for several years before ultimately moving to Howard County, Missouri. There have always been several different spellings of the surname in various records. The most common are Bunnell and Bonnell – and the children of William used both of those spellings.
Probable Children of William Bunnell
• Anne Bunnell : married John Farris in 1785, Albemarle Co. VA; probably died after 1828 in Franklin Co. IL
• Mary “Polly” Bunnell: married William Farris before 1790, VA; died 1832/1833 Franklin Co. IL
• Rebecca Bunnell: married Joseph Lyon, 1792, Rockbridge Co. VA; died Hardin Co. KY after 1836
• Jonathan Bonnell: married Rebecca Dean, died 1859 Platte Co. MO
• Samuel Bunnell: married Elizabeth Sutterfield; died 1848 in Mercer Co. KY
• John Bunnell: appears in the 1800 and 1801 tax lists in Mercer Co. KY; nothing more is known about him and he apparently died young
• Jeremiah Bunnell: married Rebecca Hardin, died 1832 in Hart Co. KY
• Joseph Bonnell: married Martha McGrath 1813, lived in Jessamine Co. KY and Howard Co. MO
• William Bunnell: married Mary Allin 1802, Mercer Co. KY; died 1862 Hardin Co. KY
• Peter Bunnell: married Susannah Erwin 1810, Green Co. KY; married Harriett Harlow 1852 Barren Co. KY; died 1868 Hart Co. KY
• Susannah Bunnell: married John Handy, 1809, Barren Co. KY; died after 1870, probably in Gentry Co. MO
• David Bunnell: Lived in several places and was married 4 times; died in Jackson Co. KS, 20 February 1828
George J Farris
Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
November 4, 2025