The Bush family did not have a distinguished history before Samuel Bush ingratiated himself to the wealthy and powerful. Although they appear to have been present in this country from the early Colonial period, they had gained no distinction.  

There were no records of a passionate commitment to the American Revolution, nor was there a record that any member of the family served in the ranks of the Continental Army, or in the War of 1812, or the Civil War. They made no great fortunes, nor did they show merit in any endeavour.  

The Bush family did not prosper, but endured. 

In 1934 Senator Gerald Nye, (R, N.D.) held hearings on the profiteering during the First War, by the Rockefeller’s, the Harriman’s and Samuel Bush.  

The phrase used to describe them collectively, and which became a public label, was the, "Merchants of Death." Nye accused the cabal of "Deliberately starting wars from which they and their companies would profit regardless of the consequences."  

Nearly all of the records compiled by the Federal government in the investigation of the Rockefellers, Harriman’s, and of Samuel Bush were inexplicably destroyed at some point following the hearings.  

The destruction of these records would begin an unseemly history of the destruction of incriminating evidence of Bush family unsavoury conduct going mysteriously missing.  

Bush Family Chronicle