Given the Bunker designation D-1, James in 1678 stated in a court deposition that he was 50, hence born in 1628. James served on a jury in 1646 in Kittery, Maine, and it is not likely he would have been called for such duty at the age of 13. James Bunker apparently came to New England without parents, arriving in Kittery in 1646. Sometime between 1649 and 1652 he moved to Dover, New Hampshire, where he was granted land on August 10, 1653. He built a fortified home known as Bunker's Garrison in the Oyster River Plantation area.
Sources disagree on the date of the garrison's construction.
In any case it was the last remaining garrison of the Oyster River Plantation area attacked by Indians in 1694. In the Bunker genealogies, references to Dover in the early years of the family really refer to territory now designated as Durham, New Hampshire. After 1732, a reference to Dover is most likely not a reference to the Oyster River Plantation area, but to the city. The above information is generally summarized from Henry L. Bunker III's 1984 Bunker Family History . Topsfield-Nantucket Branch George Bunker is credited with founding the Nantucket branch of the Bunker family, although he never visited Nantucket.