family was of long standing there, but had for some generations been
going down in the world. Bunyan's grandfather, Thomas Bunyan, as we
learn from his still extant will, carried on the occupation of a "petty
chapman," or small retail dealer, in his own freehold cottage, which he
bequeathed, "with its appurtenances," to his second wife, Ann, to
descend, after her death, to her stepson, his namesake, Thomas, and her
own son Edward, in equal shares. This cottage, which was probably John
Bunyan's birthplace, persistent tradition, confirmed by the testimony of
local names, warrants us in placing near the hamlet of Harrowden, a mile
to the east of the village of Elstow, at a place long called "Bunyan's
End," where two fields are still called by the name of "Bunyans" and
"Further Bunyans." This small freehold appears to have been all that
remained, at the death of John Bunyan's grandfather, of a property once
considerable enough to have given the name of its possessor to the whole
locality.

The family of Buingnon, Bunyun, Buniun, Boynon, Bonyon, or Binyan (the
name is found spelt in no fewer than thirty-four different ways, of which
the now-established form, Bunyan, is almost the least frequent) is one
that had established itself in Bedfordshire from very early times. The
first place in connection with which the name appears is Pulloxhill,
about nine miles from Elstow. In 1199, the year of King John's
accession, the Bunyans had approached still nearer to that parish. One
William Bunion held land at Wilstead, not more than a mile off. In 1327,
the first year of Edward III., one of the same name, probably his
descendant, William Boynon, is found actually living at Harrowden, close
to the spot which popular tradition names as John Bunyan's birthplace,
and was the owner of property there. We have no further notices of the
Bunyans of Elstow till the sixteenth century. We then find them greatly
fallen. Their ancestral property seems little by little to have passed