Where was John Whitfield Bunn born?
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Henry Bunn was born October 19, 1772, in Alexandria Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Henry Bunn was the son of Jacob Bunn (born 1736; died 1808) and Maria Elizabetha (surname unknown) (born 1744; died 1817). Henry Bunn married Mary Sigler (born April 7, 1788; died July 31, 1833). Henry Bunn and Mary (Sigler) Bunn owned a prosperous farm in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, and at the time of Henry Bunn's death in 1859 he left an estate valued at a quantity in excess of $34,000. There exists evidence that Henry Bunn, the father of Jacob Bunn, John Whitfield Bunn, and George Whitfield Bunn, engaged in the banking business in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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George Whitfield Bunn, a brother of Jacob Bunn and John Whitfield Bunn, also born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, became a pioneer banker and land developer in Marin County, California, during the nineteenth century, and once owned immense oil interests in Texas, including more than of property that later became a major oil field in Texas. George Whitfield Bunn served as an incorporator and director of the Bank of Tomales, California.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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John Whitfield Bunn (June 21, 1831 – June 7, 1920) was an American corporate leader, financier, industrialist, and personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, whose work and leadership involved a broad range of institutions ranging from Midwestern railroads, international finance, and Republican Party politics, to corporate consultation, globally significant manufacturing, and the various American stock exchanges. He was of great historical importance in the commercial, civic, political, and industrial development and growth of the state of Illinois and the American Midwest, during both the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. John Whitfield Bunn was born June 21, 1831, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Although every one of the business institutions co-founded or built by the Bunn Brothers has ceased to exist, and fallen purely into the realm of history, each of these businesses left an important legacy of honorable industrial, commercial, and civic vision for Illinois, the Midwest, and the United States.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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John W. Bunn was the third son of Henry Bunn and Mary (Sigler) Bunn, both of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. The Bunn family was Presbyterian, and they recorded the baptisms of several children in a Presbyterian Church located at one time in Alexandria, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. There exists evidence that the Bunn family ancestors had originally purchased property from the heirs of William Penn.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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In 1847, at the age of 16, John W. Bunn left New Jersey to join his older brother Jacob Bunn in the wholesale grocery trade in Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois, having been induced to make the migration to Illinois by the positive and promising description that Jacob Bunn had furnished during a return visit to the New Jersey farm where both men had been raised.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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John Bunn spent his childhood and early adulthood on the family farm located near Milford, New Jersey.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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Coming to adulthood in the quickly developing state of Illinois, and achieving an increasingly prominent status among the commercial leadership of Illinois, John W. Bunn developed a close friendship with statesman and lawyer Abraham Lincoln. John W. Bunn was a principal member within, and one of the most important members and operators of, the Abraham Lincoln political network of friendship and political support, having once earned from Illinois historian and scholar George A. Lawrence the honorable description of having been one of the closest personal and political friends of Abraham Lincoln himself.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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Jacob Bunn married Elizabeth Jane Ferguson (born May 12, 1832; died 1885), daughter of Benjamin Ferguson and Sarah (Irwin) Ferguson, both natives of Washington County, Pennsylvania. Benjamin Ferguson was a building contractor who contributed to the construction of the old Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. Sarah Irwin was the sister of the bankers and merchants Robert Irwin (born November 7, 1808; died 1865) and John Irwin (born January 20, 1804; died 1857). Robert Irwin acted as the personal debt collector for Abraham Lincoln, and served as a member of the board of directors of the State Bank of Illinois. The Irwins were all natives of Monongahela City, Pennsylvania, were Presbyterian, and were of Scottish origin. A daughter of Robert Irwin married William Marston, a Wall Street speculator and financier who often worked in partnership with Cornelius Vanderbilt, and who was responsible for the nearly $7 million stock price rally of the Michigan & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company in 1865. William Marston gained a personal profit of between $1 and $2 million, in 1865, from the artificial rally, which he manipulated and caused when he rapidly purchased nearly 22,000 shares of stock in the Michigan & Prairie du Chien Railroad Company. The Irwin family also was interconnected with the Holden Family of Cleveland, Ohio, which owned the Island Creek Coal Company, the Pond Creek Coal Company, and the Forest City Publishing Company, publisher of "The Plain Dealer" newspaper, and the Hollenden Hotel.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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Beginning as an entry-level employee in the wholelsale grocery house owned by his brother, John rapidly ascended to increased levels of responsibility, not only within the grocery enterprise, but within a diverse array of additional commercial and civic organizations in Illinois, and throughout the United States as a whole.
The J. & J. W. Bunn Grocery Company generated approximate sales of $200,000 around 1871. During the period when John W. Bunn acted with executive leadership within the J. & J. W. Bunn Grocery Company, the profitability of the firm increased, and in 1880 the sales volume of the firm reached $450,000, with prediction in 1880 of sales volume growth to $500,000 for 1881. This venture subsequently became known as "Bunn Capitol Wholesale Grocery Company" in the 1950s. George R. Bunn Jr. managed this company and created a beverage division that eventually turned into the Bunn-O-Matic Corporation, which also owns the "BUNN" brand.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn
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John W. Bunn was an incorporator of the United States Centennial Commission of 1876, the corporate body that organized and carried out the United States Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Along with Illinois delegates and incorporators Norman B. Judd, William B. Ogden, John Williams, William F. Coolbaugh, J. M. Adsit, H. O. Armour, D. J. Ely, George Bruner, Charles Fisher, John C. Proctor, and L. C. Bull, John W. Bunn served as incorporator of the $10 million corporation that provided the financial and directorial structure of the 1876 United States Centennial Exhibition. Additionally, Bunn served as a founder and member of the board of directors of the Lincoln Library of Springfield, Illinois. John Bunn, a lifelong bachelor, died on June 7, 1920 in Springfield, Illinois.
John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn