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From: Dave Larkin <>
Subject: Mount Desert History
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 11:43:28 -0400


I recently picked up a copy of Samuel Eliot Morison's "The Story of Mount
Desert Island" (Little, Brown and Co., 1980). I'll attach the information
in it on Bunkers below. This would appear to be the family of Benjamin
Bunker, b. 1710 at Oyster River (the Louisburg veteran), who married
Abigail Adams.

Dave Larkin

From "Story of Mt. Desert Island" by Samuel Eliot Morison:

Captain William Owen RN, founder of the settlement on Campabello Island,
New Brunswick, wrote an amusing account of a cruise to Mount Desert in
1770. His schooner Campo-Bello was piloted by Aaron Bunker of Cranberry
Island. She dropped anchor in Cranberry Harbor on 27 October. Bunker's
parents, with some of their younger children and grandchildren, were
settled on Great Duck Island; his brother John lived on Little Cranberry,
and another brother and married sister on Great Cranberry; "the lads" (says
Captain Owen) "all healthy, robust and industrious; the lasses fair,
handsome and good-natured." One of them, the pilot's sister Mary, was a
little too good-natured for Aaron's taste. He found her in bed, bundling
with one of Owen's shipmates, who is described as a wealthy settler of Deer
Island named Eaton. The upshot was a hasty marriage between Eaton and Miss
Bunker, performed by Captain Owen in his capacity as shipmaster, there
being no minister or justice of the peace available within thirty miles. "A
good substantial, and plentiful entertainment was provided," writes the
impromptu parson, "and a real and genuine Yankee frolic ensued."

Captain Owen next made Bass Harbor, where he found "two poor, honest,
industrious families settled," the Stephen Richardsons and Job Dennings.
The latters' daughter he described as a "fine girl" who "in a very few
years will be able to spin, card and do as her mama did before her." He
sailed as far as Portland, and on his return passage called once more at
Little Cranberry and married a member of his crew "to one Mary Wright, a
buxome widow," and "the evening was spent in Yankey jiggs and
country-dances, much innocent mirth and social glee."

--Morison's citation: CAPTAIN WILLIAM OWEN. "Narrative of American Voyages
and Travels ... 1766-1771." In New York Public Library Bulletin XXXV (1931)
71-98, 139-162, 263-300, 659-685, 705-755. Well edited, with copious notes,
by Victor H. Paltsits.

In an appendix to the book listing the origin of place names around Mt.
Desert Island, Morison has the following entry for "South Bunkers Ledge":
The real name is "Bunker's Whore." The story goes that a certain Captain
Bunker took the town trollop of Southwest Harbor sailing in his sloop, and
that they "carried on" so that the vessel ran hard and fast on this ledge.


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