Where is Henry Lunt's journal?

The comment (below, indented) was made to the post about Lt. Henry Lunt (Mariner) this past week by Kathy Evans who is part of a project team that is looking for the Bonhomme Richard. The comment includes links to information about the project.

Comment:

I am contacting because of a mutual interest we share with you, the ship Henry Lunt rode to fame on in September 1779 along with Commander John Paul Jones - the Bonhomme Richard. We have been searching for the long lost wreck of the Bonhomme Richard since 2006, and are contacting you in the hopes that a personal journal Lt. Lunt kept may be in your possession. That journal seems to be missing from the historic record and we are hoping that as his descendants you may either have it or know where it is.  

I am an associate of Ocean Technology Foundation. You may wish to look at our homepage at http://www.oceantechnology.org/. If you turn your attention to the bottom of that page you’ll see a link to our Bonhomme Richard project. 

We are nonprofit group with 501(c)(3) status whose focus is primarily on Marine Research and Education which is how our foremost venture became locating the Bonhomme Richard.   

In that endeavor we have scoured nearly 900 square nautical miles of ocean floor in the southern portion of the North Sea. We believe that the Lt. Lunt’s journal may hold the key to why our search has thus far not led us to the ship. We are also hopeful that if you are in possession of the journal you will share a copy of it with us. 

We have posted an excerpt from a documentary we recently did you may wish to see. You can find it at http://review.bellmedia.ca/view/690469057.

End of comment.

Henry served, as 1st Officer, under John Paul Jones and has had much written about him that we expect to review in more depth later. Some who wrote of him, such as James Fenimore Cooper, saw the journal. A Lunt descendant, evidently, saw the journal last century.

The search team expects that Lt. Henry's journal would contain information pertinent to their goal. So, where is the journal?

For now, this post is meant to initiate an effort at doing a wide cast. Please forward a link to whomever you think might know about the journal. To contribute information, post a comment or send responses to ajswtlk[@]gmail[.]com.

Future posts will go more into Lt. Henry's exploits and describe responses to this query; too, we'll detail other approaches that will be attempted, such as those related to crowd sourcing and the like.

Remarks:

03/07/2013 --  

Modified: 03/07/2013

Summary, 2012

This blog got its start in December, 2010. A Post of Interest was done in December of 2011. So far, there has been 27 posts with one category which is Descendants.

Past 30 days                            All time

The image shows two lists which contain the most-read posts which does measure popularity. Too, these are the post that handle incoming views.

• The top posts are similar on each list. George C. Lunt (Silversmith) took over ownership of Lunt Silversmith in 1902. The firm had its start with the Moulton family in the 17th century.   

2010 and 2012 did not have many posts. 2011 had 19 posts. A few post this year will be done on people taken from the Progeny list.

Remarks:

12/29/2012 --  

Modified: 12/29/2012

Walter Goodwin Davis

Earlier, we started a list of descendants. Walter Goodwin Davis (Robinson tree) will be added to the list. He spent many years as a genealogist and wrote a ton of books and articles (NEHGS).

Having been Maine borne and bred, he specialized in the area, including connections with Massachusetts. He took the time to expand the trees of collateral families, many times providing the first good look.

We will be using his work quite a bit.

Remarks:

11/14/2012 --  

Modified: 12/14/2012

Charles Lunt

With the cooler weather dropping down and autumn being around the corner, it's time to research, again. One thing that we want to do here is collect information about the Lunt, and its collateral, families and present this in an easily browsed manner. Web-based material abounds, as this example shows.

---

Charles Lunt (#1832, TS Lunt) was born in New Hampshire to John and Anna (Wheeler). He married Sarah Hosmer of Concord, MA. Sarah's father was a contemporary, and friend, of Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists.

Charles died in the Civil War. We'll look for particulars.

---

Sarah was an author. The New York Society Library has a collection of her works and related material.

         http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/fin_aids/NYSL_Hosmer_Lunt.htm


Remarks:

08/22/2012 --  

Modified: 08/22/2012

From whence Lunt?

Origins are always of interest. In this case, we can ask two questions: from where did Henry come and did the Lunt name arise?

Earlier, we pointed to the Great Migration pages on Henry and Ann. In particular, the book was titled: The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volume IV, I-L. One reason for using this book is that it can be considered, somewhat, the latest definitive answer having been written by an experienced genealogical team.

So, let's review a few items from the book.

• Origin is said to be unknown, but they did board the Mary & John at Southhampton. 
• Education is not known. Henry did have some books and signed his deeds. 
• Birth as estimated to be about 1614, but it's not considered proven that he was a son of Thomas of South Marston. 
• Mention of the look at Lunts by Walter Goodwin Davis, a descendant (Robinson). 
• Ann married Joseph Hills after Henry died (we'll look at that later).

Great migration sketch for Henry: http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Person:Henry_Lunt_%283%29

---

Lunt's origin is unknown. Some say that it is Scandinavian in origin, a variant of Lundt (from the grove). Others point to an Anglo-Saxon origin, namely Laund (open space in a forest). Another source mentions that there was a family seat in Yorkshire that goes back before the Norman conquest.

---

There is a Lunt family center in the UK: http://www.lunt-family.co.uk/home/index.htm. This site seems to be out of date but looked to be a good idea.

Also, we ought to consider fort (Roman) that is called Lunt.

Remarks:

05/30/2012 --  

Modified: 05/30/2012

Reverends

Last May, we looked at William Parsons Lunt. The last post started a list of progeny on which there were a couple more ministers. No doubt, we'll find more.

Taking these two in chronological order, we have Nathaniel Thayer and Rev. Endicott Peabody. These both were descendants via son Henry.

• Nathaniel Thayer -- he was a congregational Unitarian. He gave the 4 June 1798 sermon to the Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. He was known for helping to smooth matters and served on more than 150 church councils.  

• Rev. Endicott Peabody -- he went to an Episcopal seminary. The Reverend went west during the days that were wild. He was in Tombstone, AZ and knew Wyatt Earp. Later, he founded Groton School for Boys. One of his charges was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

Remarks:

04/15/2012 --  

Modified: 04/15/2012

Some progeny

We have already identified a few descendants of Henry (died 10 Jul 1662, in Newbury). Son Henry has an interesting collection, such as the Timothy Pickering and the John Lowell Gardners, through his daughter, Mary.

By using descendant trees (Overmire, Larson, Dowling, etc.), we can list a few more progeny for all of the children.

• George Bancroft (c 1750s, Elizabeth) -- Secretary of U.S. Navy
• Nathaniel Thayer (c 1760s, Henry) -- chaplain, Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts
• Henry Wetherby Benchley (c 1820s, Sarah) -- jailed for running an Underground Railroad
• Charles William Eliot (c 1830s, Henry) -- president of Harvard, from 1869 to 1909
• Charles Vernon Gridley (c 1840s, Sarah) -- Captain, U.S. Navy
• Lucy Lambert Hale (c 1840s, Mary) -- engaged to John Wilkes Booth
• Francis Edgar Stanley (c 1840s, Mary) -- Stanley steam car
• George Wood Wingate (c 1840s, Henry) -- lawyer and organizer of rifle practice
• Thornton Chase (c 1840s, Henry) -- poet, religious seeker and publisher
• George Draper Dayton (c 1850s, Henry) -- founder of Dayton's
• Abbott Lawrence Lowell  (c 1850s, Henry) -- president of Harvard, from 1909 to 1933
• Rev. Endicott Peabody  (c 1850s, Henry) -- founder of Groton School for Boys
• Horatio William Parker (c 1860s, Sarah) -- teacher of Charles Ives
• Edward Graham Parker (c 1870s, Sarah) -- Captain, U.S. Navy (his widow married Clark H. Woodward) 
• Elliott Carr Cutler (c 1880s, Henry) -- Brigadier General in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, surgeon
• Robert Hutchings Goddard (c 1880s, Sarah) -- father of U.S. rocketry
• Ezra Loomis Pound (c 1880s, Sarah) -- poet
• Theodore Edson Chandler (c 1890s, Mary) -- admiral, U.S. Navy
• Willard Frank Libby (c 19yy, Daniel -- Nobel Prize winner
• Hugh Bancroft (c 19yy, Elizabeth) -- publisher of Wall Street Journal 
• Alan Bartlett Shepard (c 1920s, Sarah) -- NASA astronaut
• Peter Benchley (c 1940s, Sarah) -- author
• John Forbes Kerry  (c 1940s, Henry) -- U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and presidential nominee, 2004, of the Democratic Party
• ...
• Walter Goodwin Davis (c 1880s) -- preeminent genealogist
• ...

The list is not complete and was developed by browsing rootsweb trees. The effort will continue.

Remarks:

02/01/2013 -- Point Larson link to new site.

01/10/2013 --  Larson DB has moved. So, removed the pointer, for now. 

Modified: 02/01/2013