To everyone interested in these families,
I received this information from my father, John L. Wiggins of Holly Hill.
I do not know where he obtained the newspaper clipping which I am
transcribing or when it was published.  I know that some of the people
mentioned have passed away.  The writer, J. Russell Cross, is a respected
historian of the area and he is now in a local nursing home.  This is a long
article, but full of facts about these families.

"People ask why was First Street the first street of Holly Hill.  When I was
a boy Miss Pansy Truluck interested me in the study of history and that
interest caused my Grandmother Russell to promise me a box of old Bunch
Family papers and records she had received from her mother, Martha Adaline
Bunch Hart.  My grandmother gave me the box shortly before her last illness,
but she did not have the plat to deliver to me as she had loaned it to a
nephew.
    Members of the Bunch family are listed in early Orangeburg and St.
Matthews Parish records and several were acquiring lands on Four Holes Swamp
in St. James Goose Creek in the late 1700s.  Laford Bunch's name first
appears in the purchase of land on Wassamassaw in 1804.  In 1805 he
purchased land from James A. Massy.  In 1806 he bought land from Tillman
Plat on Four Holes.  In 1810 he is listed in Orangeburg District, but the
1830 Census shows him in St. James Goose Creek parish with his wife, two
sons, 4 daughters and 26 slaves.  The Census must have been in error as
there were other sons.  HIs will was signed 13 July 1833 and proved 28 Aug
1833.  His widow Mary and his son John qualified as executor and executrix.
He had lived on his plantation "Dover," containing 1220 acres on PeeDee Lake
and also owned the Mare Pond Tract, tract joining Thomas Bradwell, Graveyard
Tract, Callaway Tract, and Campground Tract.  His children were Mary Luten,
John Bunch (ancestor of XO Bunch and Thelma Gross Williams [she is
deceased]), James Bunch, George Bunch (who moved to Baker County Ga), Joel
Bunch (who moved to Houston County Ga) Adger Bunch (see below) Warren Bunch
(who was in business with Adger and bought out most of the relatives) and
Eliza Bunch.
    When Warren Bunch died he left the largest part of his property to his
brother Adger to take care of their mother, Mary.  Mary Bunch, widow, bought
From James Mims for $300.00 one hundred fifty acres on 16 October 1833 and
appears to have moved her family from "Dover" on PeeDee Lake to the
Bunch-Hart house site at the end of First Street.  This land then bounded by
Saml. Shuler, Estate of Platt, James Gins land.  In May of 1836 she bought
From Col. James S. Shingler 50 acres known as the Davis place just below her
settlement and above Hickory Bend.

"Be well, do good work, and keep in touch." --- G. Keillor
Love,
Anne

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