Obituary from the Morning Telegraph, St. John, NB--Date-Nov. 1, 1869:
d. Nov.1. 1869 at residence of his son, Pollett River, Salisbury (West. Co.) 24th ult., Thomas BANNISTER, Sr., age 86.From selectsurnames.com
The first Bannister in Canada seems to have been of Irish origin, a John Bannister who settled in Trinity, Newfoundland in the 1780's. Thomas Bannister's origins are uncertain (it could have been Cheshire). In the early 1800's he had been drawn to Sussex at a time when defenders were needed to thwart a possible Napoleonic invasion. When that threat ended in 1810, it would appear that the Government paid for his passage to Canada. He settled as a farmer in Elgin Parish, New Brunswick. Later, in the 1850's, William Bannister from Suffolk started his farm in Vanessa, Ontario. His descendant Mark Bannister is still growing tobacco on that land today. It all begins with Thomas and Mary...
Thomas Bannister-1786/1869 left Surrey, England when he was about 24 years of age. He met Mary Sears in Sackville, New Brunswick and married her about a year later in 1811. We are not sure where they established their first homestead but it seems that it was in...what is now...Pollett River, Elgin Parish, Albert County, NB. Most of their children stayed in the Elgin area and raised large families.
Mary Sears was born about 1791 in Sackville, Westmorland County, NB. As of yet, I can't find a record of when she died. Her parents were United Empire Loyalists that left Westchester, NY, USA in 1785.
On these pages are eight generations of Bannisters including my grandchildren...
Since I was adopted by James and Irene Bannister at eight years of age, this is the only name that I have used in any legal context. In these pages you may see the Teahan name added purely to show relationship to my "true" ancestors.Descendants of
THOMAS BANNISTER
Bannister surname...
The early chronicles of England record the surname BANNISTER as of Norman origin but a more indepth search takes us back much further in the history of the British Isles.
The name invariably appears in the Anglo-Saxon period and one historical reference to origin has it this way:
Many Anglo-Saxon surnames began in a very simple manner, Fisher--for those that fished, Baker-- for those that baked, and so on.
A basket maker was often called a "baner" because the term, "baning", was used for the practice of hammering out the slender willows along a stream to separate the strands of wood needed to create a basket. Hence the name BANESTER or BANISTER meant "one who banes". This simple method of designating names goes back to BCE.
This explanation is even more relevant when one considers that the ancient BANNISTER Coat of Arms is described as, "two baskets with three gold fleur de lys on a red stripe at the top of the shield".