1Herbert F. Seversmith, Francis Bushnell of Horsham, Sussex, and Guilford, Connecticut, The American Genealogist, Vol. 16, pp. 45-47 (1939).
"In 1915 the Sussex Record Society published the parish registers of Horsham, Sussex, in volume 21 of their regular publications. An examination of these registers discloses entries relative to the family of Francis Bushnell, and from correlation there can be no question but that we have discovered transatlantic connections of the Francis Bushnell who was one of the earliest settlers of Guilford, Connecticut.
Francis Bushnell appears for the first time in the Horsham registers when on May 13, 1605 he married Ferris Quynell or Quenell, daughter of Henry and Beatrix (Carter) Quynell. There is nothing to show where he had come from or what his antecedents may have been; a widow Mary Bushnell, perhaps a relative, was buried at Horsham on February 22, 1624/5. Baptisms of children and grandchildren appear until about 1634, but the family had removed from Horsham before July 30, 1640 as they are not listed in the West Sussex Protestation Returns of that date (Sussex Record Society publications, Vol. V). This fact together with the exact duplication in the registers of the names of the children who later appear in Guilford and Saybrook, Connecticut, are the premises upon which we rest this identification.
Ferris Quynell, the first wife of Francis Bushnell, was baptised at Horsham April 17, 15871 and buried there with her last child Elizabeth, March 10, 1627/8. The wife Rebecca, sometimes called Holmes, who appears in Guilford as the wife of Francis Bushnell, was a subsequent wife and very evidently not the mother of his children. She is not of record in Horsham.
. . .
The children of Francis Bushnell and wife Ferris Quynell were, all baptised at Horsham, Sussex:
1. EDMUND, baptised April 27, 1606, married at Horsham, August 2, 1627 to MARTHA HALLOR.
. . .
2. FRANCIS, baptised January 8, 1608/9, died at Saybrook, Connecticut, December 4, 1681. The gravestone gives his age as 82, certainly in error by ten years. He emigrated in The Planter which arrived in New England in April, 1635; the shipping lists state that he was 26 years of age, which confirms the date of birth as indicated by the baptismal record. He married 1, at Horsham, June 2, 1629 to JOANE KINWARD who was buried there June 21, 1631 and by whom no children are recorded. He married 2, at Horsham, June 27, 1631, to MARY or MARIE GROMBRIDGE (Grumbridge, Groombridge),2 who appears on the above-mentioned shipping list as aged 26 in 1635, therefore born in 1609.
. . .
3. WILLIAM, baptised February 3, 1610/11, died at Saybrook, Conn., November 1, 1683; married a sister of Robert Chapman.
4. STEPHEN, baptised January 31, 1612/3, buried "a stripling" at Horsham, March 12, 1624/5.
5. JOHN, baptised April 23, 1615, presumably the one who emigrated in The Hopewell in 1635, aged 21; of Salem, Massachusetts.
6. THOMAS, baptised August 31, 1617, buried September 6, 1617.
7. MARY, baptised December 25, 1618, buried March 10, 1628/9.
8. REBECCA, baptised April 15, 1621; died at Saybrook, Connecticut, before February 11, 1646/7; married JOHN LORD of Saybrook.
9. RICHARD, baptised April 20, 1623, died between December 1, 1659 and July 17, 1660 at Norwalk, Conn.; married at Hartford, Conn., October 11, 1648, MARY, daughter of Matthew MARVIN.
10. SARAH, baptised November 26, 1625, married at Guilford, Conn., July 14, 1642, the Rev. JOHN HOADLEY.
11. ELIZABETH, baptised March 5, 1627/8, buried March 10, 1627/8, with her mother.".2R. D. Smyth, Francis Bushnell of Guilford, Conn. and His Descendants, NEHGR Vol. 53, p. 208 (Apr 1899).
This source is mistaken about Rebecca being the mother of Francis's children. See footnote 1 where Ferris Quinell is shown to be the mother.
"FRANCIS1 BUSHNELL, "the elder," and Francis Bushnell, "junior," most undoubtedly father and son, were among the first settlers of Guilford. One of them signed the Plantation Covenant. Probably this was the elder. He died in 1646, and his will was proved on October 13. Rev. John Hoadley, who signed the same covenant, came over on the same ship. On the voyage, his grandson, the famous Bishop Benjamin Hoadley, say he "accidentally met with" Sarah Bushnell, a daughter of Francis, whom he afterwards married. Francis Bushnell, Jr., probably came over in April, 1635, in the "Planter," with his wife and infant daughter. John Bushnell, the glazier, another son, came over in another vessel, the "Hopewell," in the same year. Both brothers were in Salem in 1637. Another Bushnell, who may have been a relative, was in the employ of John Winthrop, the younger, in Boston, and died in March, 1636. The elder, 1. FRANCIS BUSHNELL, married Rebecca -------. he had a home lot of three acres in Guilford, having John Hoadley, William Dudley and Thomas Jordan as neighbors. Among his descendants are David Bushnell, who invented the first torpedo, the American turtle, and Cornelius Bushnell, who advanced Ericsson the funds with which the "Monitor" was built.
The children of Francis and Rebecca Bushnell were:
2. i. FRANCIS,2 b. 1609; d. Dec. 4, 1681.
ii. REBECCA, m. 1646, at Guilford, John Lord. She seems to have been residing with her father at Guilford at his death and, with her husband, to have presented an inventory, on Feb. 11, 1646-7, of her father's estate, of all his goods, houses and lands, in her possession at the time of his decease. Francis Bushnell's will was witnessed by Rev. Henry Whitfield and William Leete. John Lord sold the lands to John Fowler, after death of his wife, Rebecca Bushnell.
3. iii. WILLIAM, d. Nov. 12, 1683.
4. iv. JOHN, b. 1614; d. 1667.
v. SARAH, bapt. Nov. 26, 1625, at Horsfield, Sussex; m. July 14, 1642, Rev. John Hoadley, of Guilford. He afterwards returned to England, and d. at Halsted, Kent, July 1, 1693. She d. at Rolvendon, Kent, July 28, 1668. The Bishops John and Benjamin Hoadley were their grandsons.
5. vi. RICHARD, D. 1657."