Gideon Bunch

Gideon5 Bunch, John4 Bunch, Paul3 Bunch, John2 Bunch, John1 Bunch

18. Gideon Bunch (c 1704 - c 1774). The Bunch family is a “free colored” family going back to the early 1600s in Virginia and have extensively married into many Native families. He inconsistently appears in the Granville County tax lists in the 1750s and 1760s and did not enlist in Eaton’s regiment. Tax and land records place him moving about in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. His later years were in South Carolina.

1715 - Gedion Bunch, was born about 1715. He was the son of John Bunch born about 1695. We know this because because he sold the land his father John Bunch inherited.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bunch-565

Perhaps he was the Gideon Bunch whose 17 March 1804 St. James, Goose Creek, Charleston County, South Carolina will was proved 7 May the same year [WB 29:629].

Children

1. Micajah, born by 1726
2. Paul, born by 1722, died 1771. Brother Micajah, executor.
3. Ephraim, born say 1738, in the Berkeley County, South Carolina detachment under command of Captain Benjamin Elliot. He married Lydia Crier, daughter of Thomas Crier/Cryer and Elizabeth Powell. (Not listed in Obama study.)
4. William, born say 1740, an over sixteen-year-old taxable in his father's household in the 1762 list for Fishing Creek District.
5. Liddy, born before 1743, taxable in the 1754 Granville County tax list of Gideon Macon with (her brother?) Micajah Bunch in John Stroud's household. (Not listed in Obama study.)
6. Fanny, born about 1745-49, a 12-16 year-old taxable in the Fishing Creek District, Granville County household of John Griffin and his wife Miles Griffin in 1761. (Not listed in Obama study.)

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https://nativeamericanroots.wordpress.com/tag/bunch/

7.Gideon Bunch, born perhaps 1713, was probably John2 Bunch's son since he sold the land John inherited. He was living in Brunswick County, Virginia, in 1740 [Orders 1732-41, 253; 1737-44, 41, 64]. He was a defendant in a June 1747 Lunenburg County, Virginia court case [Orders 1746-48, 209] and was taxable in Lunenburg County on himself and Cage Bunch (his son Micajah?) in 1749 [Bell, Sunlight on the Southside, 114]. He was taxed as "Gibion" Bunch on 2 polls in the 1750 Granville County, North Carolina tax list of Samuel Henderson [CR 44.701.19]. He was taxable on one black poll in 1755 in Orange County, North Carolina:

Bunch, Gideon a Molata 0/1 [T&C Box 1, p.4].

Comments

http://www.randyspecktacular.com/2008/09/micajah-bunch-king-of-melu...

DNA shows that Micajah Bunch was the son of Gideon Bunch and a daughter of Henry Sizemore and Marjory Owen. The Sizemore's paternal DNA confirms their Native American roots. Henry Sizemore was most likely Saponi, and presumably captured as a boy during the Occaneechi raids in Virginia. Bunch paternal DNA confirms their origins to be from the Portuguese colony of Angola Africa and descendants of John Ponce. Malachi's paternal grandfather was English, named Wm Wright according to his paternal DNA traceable to Bunch cousins in South Carolina. No doubt, Malachi's father Gideon kept his mother's surname. I am descended from Malachi;s sister, Miles Bunch who married John Griffin of Amelia Township, South Carolina. Malichi did not follow his father to South Carolina, but went with his mother's people, the Sizemores, into western North Carolina and beyond.

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The land that John4 Bunch (Paul3 Bunch, John2 Bunch I, John1 Punch) obtained was curiously enough on the Santee River. His wife might well have been white. Not allowed to marry in Virginia, it would be no wonder that these free men would leave to settle somewhere they could reside in peace and prosper on their own merits.
Children of John Bunch (perhaps by his wife Mary):
1. Gideon5 Bunch, born about 1704–05 (perhaps named after Gideon Gibson), first occurs on record in Brunswick County, Virginia, on 7 June 1739, when William Gunn brought suit against “Giddeon Bunch” for £3.0.11 guaranteed by a promissory note dated 20 October 1738.99 At that time Brunswick County covered a massive expanse, including most of southwest Virginia. Thomas Jones sued Gideon Bunch on 2 October 1741, claiming he was indebted for twelve pounds of good, merchantable deer leather by bill, but had refused payment. Jones brought suit before the court of Brunswick County on 2 October 1741, but Gideon had not been properly served yet. Service was apparently made in the next few months, as the court ruled in Jones’s favor on 3 December 1741.100 Twelve pounds of processed deer hide was no small amount and probably reveals how Gideon earned much of his living. Gideon was a defendant in Lunenburg County, Virginia, on 1 June 1747 (this time for £1.8.6).
101 Lunenburg was created from Brunswick County in 1745. Gideon and Cage
(Micajah) Bunch (his son) were tithables in Lunenburg County in 1749.
102 Gideon moved back into North Carolina soon afterwards. He was taxed in Granville County, North Carolina, in 1750 (he was sometimes recorded as Gibeon and is probably the Gibbe Bunch recorded in one record).
103 Gideon was taxed as a mulatto in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1755
(with the Collins and Gibson families).
104 He was still in Orange County in June 1756 and indebted to a man named Samuel Benton.
105 Gideon Bunch had a plat for 100 acres on Four Hole Swamp, Berkeley County, South Carolina, certified 20 January 1759.
106 He had a grant of 100 acres on the north east side of Four Hole Swamp in Berkeley County on 25 April
1765, and another 100 acres grant in Berkeley County on 17 May 1774.
107 A plat for 200 acres owned by Gideon Bunch in Berkeley County is dated 11 March 1773, and a memorial
for 200 acres in St. Mathews Parish, Berkeley County, South Carolina, is dated 25 October 1774.

References

• https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/melungeon/17928/
• http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Brooks_Byrd.htm
• https://www.familysearch.org/service/records/storage/das-mem/patron...
• http://www.historical-melungeons.com/bunch3.html
• https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/melungeon/17928/
• http://www.bunchcousins.com/pennytimeline.htm
• PDF page 22 of “ DESCENT OF THE BUNCH FAMILY IN VIRGINIA AND THE CAROLINAS”