Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

America. As to the places from which
they came nothing is definitely known
with one exception, but some of them are
thought to have come from Midland or
London. It seems almost certain that the
first Bannings in America came from
England, Ireland, Scotland, as the given
names are English, or at least more common
in England than elsewhere, e. g.,
Edward, James, John, and Samuel. Sometime
prior to 1678 an Edward Banning
settled in Talbot County, Maryland,
which was but a few years after Lord
Baltimore was granted a charter for colonization
purposes by the King of Eng-
land. About 1700 there is a record of a
James Banning being in the same county
that Edward Banning came to. About
this same time two other Bannings are
known of in or near Lyme, Connecticut,
by name Samuel and John Banning.
These last three, by tradition, are sup-
posed to have been brothers, which, if a
fact, makes it more than likely that they
were sons of Edward Banning, of Talbot
County, Maryland. Some forty odd years
later a Benoni Banning settled in Talbot
County, Maryland. He came from Dub-
lin, Ireland, to which place his father is
thought to have come from Scotland or
England, but about 1790 John Banning,
who was born August 15, 1760, in Staf-
ford, England, came to Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. His son Daniel lived in
Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, but of his
descendants nothing is known. There is
in Los Angeles County, California, and in
Pennsylvania, a town named Banning,
and in California a military camp by that
name.
Some years after James Banning, and
about the time Benoni Banning was
known of in Maryland, there appeared
Bannings in Delaware. It is not unlikely
that they may have come from those in
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Maryland, as these two states are geo-
graphically one, but if they did not, it is
possible that they migrated from Holland,
where there were so many Bannings.
From the names of some of their descendants,
it is contended that they are of Dutch
origin, and as Delaware was early settled
by the Dutch, this may be the case. From
the Delaware Bannings there have come
two branches, one a branch in California,
and a branch now in Delaware and Phila-
delphia, Pennsylvania. There is a strong
likelihood that Phineas Banning was a
brother of Benoni Banning, and his bro-
ther, James Banning, who came to Talbot
County, Maryland.
This family was originally of Neyland
in Suffolk. Richard Bannyng, or Bayn-
ing, dwelt at Dedham about the end of the
fifteenth century. His son, Richard, mar-
ried Anne Raven, daughter and co-heir of
Robert Raven, of Creting St. Mary's in
Suffolk, and had Richard of Dedham, who
married Anne Barker, daughter of John
Barker, of Ipswich, by whom he had
Paul (Andrew, a very eminent merchant
in Mincing Lane, who died without issue
December 21, 1610, aged sixty-seven. See
under Powers in Little Waltham).
Paul Bayning was a citizen and Alderman
of London, and one of the Sheriffs of
that city in 1593. He accumulated a very
great fortune by merchandising, so advantageous
was trade even in its infancy,
that Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir Andrew
Judde, Thomas Sutton, founder of the
Charter-house, and our two brothers, Paul
and Andrew, laid immense and incredible
riches by. These two have a monument
erected to their memory in the chancel
of the Church of St. Olave, Hart Street,
by which it appears that Paul died September
3, 1616, aged seventy-seven. He
had two wives. The first was a daughter
of a Mowfe, of Needham, or Creting, in