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Ex-President Hoover's English Descent. By C. GILBERT BUNTING.

Herbert Clark Hoover, µntil recently President of the United States, though descended on .the male side from an immigrant ancestor Andrew Huber who settled in Maryland from Baden about 17 40, was on the maternal side, of English stock. He is of a Quaker family which about the same time that William Penn, himself a Quaker, founded the Province of Pennsylvania, left Derbyshire in the seventeenth century for America. Ever since they have remained staunch members of the Society of Friends. And it was due to the religious persecution of members of their faith that they left these shores.

Derbyshire, as well as Norfolk, has been the home of the Buntings .since early times. Kemble, " Saxons in England," gives the Buntingas as one of the Angle septs or families which invaded Britain in the sixth century. They were certainly in Derbyshire in the reign of Edward I, for one branch uninterruptedly owned the estate of Buntingfield in Ashover from this period for over five -centuries. For there is in existence a grant of the estate to John .Buntyng which is ascribed to 1285, and it remained in the farniiy till it was sol d b y another John Bunting in 1819. On the sale of the Estate (wh ich was of about 100 acres) the old mansion house was removed b y Joh n Bunting sto ne by stone and re-erected at Penmore , Ch esterfi eld, where it now stands.

The fami ly were for th e Parl iament in the Civil War and John Bun ting of Buntingfield (b . 16 10) w as a Captain in the Parliamentary Ar m y and was second in comm and of their forces at the taking -0f W ingfield Manor. The Rector of A sho ver, the R ev. Mr. Bourne, was a violent preacher against the Kin g . A party of the King's "Troops garrisoned at Wingerworth Old Ha ll visited Ashover and .destroyed the Parish Registers. They did no t forget to pay a visit to Buntingfield, but the house was th en deserte d and the ,cattle had been driven off.

In an interesting document written by John Bunti ng in 1838 {which is still in existence) he relates thes e facts firs t-hand from his father Joseph ( 1742 - 1826) .. The latter's uncle Jo seph Bunting ,(1691 - 177 1) was a grandson of John Bunting (b. 1610) and his father son of the last mentioned John Bunting was alive when the events took place.

Close by at Matlock in 1600 was born (I) Anthony Bunting ·who was the first of the family to leave the Church of England.

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The Act of Uniformity 1662 passed on the return of Charles II compelled all Puritans either to conform o: . leave the c~u~ch .. An thony Bunting refused to. confor~ and JOl_ned the Rehg1~us Society of Friends. Zealous 10 worship according to the p~act1ce of the Societ y he was taken with several others at a Meeting at Chesterfiel d on the 18th January 1665 and committed to prison for six months for his faith.

In 1670" many underwent the spoiling of their g<?ods for frequent­ing religious assem blies and at one of these meetings usually held at the House of Anth on y Bunting" goods were taken therefrom to the value of£ 11. (See Besse's Sufferings of the People called Quakers, Vol. 1, pp. 140-1). He was likewise presented as a recusant at the Derby Assizes in 1682, and suffered confiscation of his property which his sympathisers gen erously repurchased for him as a gift. When under the Toleration Act of 1689 the Quakers secured the right of public worship Bun tingfield was registered as a place of meeting for worship. Anthony Bunting had married on the 21st September 1641 at Matlock , Ell en Barker, and he died aged 100 years and was buried on th e 4th January 1700 at the Quakers" Burial Ground at Tupton.

Due doubtless to this religious persecution three of his four sons. left England, one Samuel in 1678 and two John and Job short! y after, and all settled in Crossw icks, New Jersey. 'fhe other, William, . who died on the 15th Novem ber 1719 and was buried at Bunting­field, is also the ancestor of numero us families of his name in America, for his son Samuel born 9th Nove mber 1692 sailed from England in the ship "Neptune" in 1722 an d settled in Darby, Pa. He married Sarah Fearne, grand- daugh ter of John Blunston, a member of t~e first Assembly (which met in 1682) of the Province of Pennsyl­vania.

Of the three earlier settlers (II) Job Bunting of Crosswicks, New Jersey, baptised 10th June 1660, married 27th June 1689 Rachel Baker at Middletown, U .S.A . (H istory of Bucks Co. by Davis,. Vol. III, p. 184). (III ) Samuel Bunting their eldest child was born 25th August 1692 in Bucks Co ., Penna, where his father had gone to reside before his marriage. H e married in 171 5 Priscilla Burgess and one of their family (IV ) Ph rebe Bunting born 2nd March 1726. in Bucks Co., Penna, marr ied Francis Wasly of Bucks Co., Yeoman. Their son (V) Francis Was ly of Falls Township, and later of Muncy Co. Northumberlan d, Yeom an, born in 1751, married in 178 3 Hannah Scott. They ha d eleven children and the fifth (VI) Henry Wasly was born 19th J uly 1793. H is parents later removed to York County, Cana da, and Henry W asl y there married Ann Tool on the 22nd _Novemb~r 1813. Both were me1?bers of the Yonge Street Meeting of Frien ds. They then settled 1n Norwich Ontario ,,

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Canada. A daughter (VII) Mary born at Norwich on 1st September 1818 married there on 4th January 1842. Theodore Minthorn and retained her membership of the Society after marriage with a Non-Friend. The family removed to the State of Iowa, U.S.A., with their seven children, among whom was their daughter (VIII) Huldah Randall Minthorn, born 4th May 1848 at Norwich, Ontario, who married Jesse Clark Hoover at West Branch, Iowa, on the 12.th March, 18 70. He was the son of Eli Hoover and Mary his wife (formed y Davis). Their son (IX) Herbert Clark Hoover was born at West Branch, Iowa, on the 10th August, 1874. His wife Lou Henry, whom he married 10th February 1899 was of Monterey, California, and is of English descent.

Thus through nine generations all professing the Quaker faith can be traced the English ancestry of the Ex-President. I am in­debted to Dr. Martha Bunting, of Pennsylvania University, Phila­delphia, and Dr. E. C. Dickson, of Stanford University, San Francisco, for much of the above information concerning the Ex­President's American ancestry, and to Mr. W. Braylesford Bunting for his loan of the above MS.

It is a noteworthy fact that from another branch of the Derbyshire Buntings sprang Dr. Jabez Bunting, D.D., of Manchester and London, the distinguished Wesleyan Methodist Minister and divine. Probably no one since Wesley himself occupied so prominent a position in Methodism as Dr. Bunting. He was four times President of the Wesleyan Conference between 1820 and 1844. A great preacher and a· wise and successful administrator he occupied many other important positions in the Wesley Church. He died in 18 3 5 and his " Life " in two volumes was published in r 8 5 9 a~d 1887. His grand-son Sir Percy William Bunting, Barrister­at-law was for many years up to his death in 1911 Editor of the Contemporary Review.

Mr. BOYD has a large number of slips relating to Middlesex ~arriages, which will not be typed for perhaps a year or more. He is willing to make searches in them for Members.

The Card Index. The Card Index as well as the Library is rehoused, and we thipk that the

Me~bers will appreciate the new arrangement with its convenient tables for ~heir work. But the Index itself needs to have much labour expended upon 1 t. W ~ particular! y need sorters for the Index Locorum, a m?s t usef~l afi pendix to the main Index, and for the Harvey Bloom Collection of Will s ps, _and the Monumental Inscriptions. Will those _Me~bers who c~n S~met~mes spend an hour or t~o on the work kin~ly sfnd their names to Miss

tnclair, who superintends this branch of the Society s labours ?