This contains a transcription of the section about the Dustin family from The History of Canaan, New Hampshire by William Allen Wallace, edited by James Burns Wallace, Concord, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1910.
The Dustin family were originally from Haverhill, Mass. Jonathan Dustin was a millwright and carpenter. He and his son David served in the Revolution and after their discharge in 1780, emigrated to Canaan and became purchasers of rights in the proprietary. In the old surveys, he is described as Lieut. Jonathan Dustin. The family always resided upon the farm known by that name, which Jonathan purchased of James Treadway in 1780 for “400 pounds L. M.,” and David, the son, deeded to Joseph the grandson in 1840. It is now owned by M. E. Cross. Jonathan was the owner of the right of Phineas Sabine and when he came to Canaan, built his log house in the field northeasterly of where the present house of Mr. Cross is. William Douglass had the only house there before him in this section. Mr. Dustin’s land was on the west and north of Douglass’, and extended on the east to the shores of Hart Pond.
Jonathan Dustin died July 4, 1812; he lived to be over ninety-three years old. His children were David, Hannah, who married Simeon Arvin, Ruth, named after her mother, who married David Fogg November 23, 1788, Susanna, Daniel, Samuel, Jonathan, Jr. David Dustin died September 10, 1840, aged seventy-nine years, he married Rebecca Cross, daughter of Jonathan Cross of Methuen, Mass., and then of Canaan. She died November [page 500] 24, 1849, aged eighty-two years. “Uncle David,” he was always called, a kind friendly man, whom the young people always liked. He had several sons. James, born in 1791, who served an apprenticeship with Jacob Dow, the tanner, and was a volunteer of the War of 1812. He emigrated to Ohio. Caleb, born August 24, 1799, lived and died in Canaan January, 1891, at a ripe old age of over ninety-one years. He married first Nancy Miller, daughter of Jacob, January 27, 1824; she died December 3, 1857, aged fifty-five years. They had three children: Emily, who died February 28, 1841; Caroline E., who died March 8, 1841, and Loraine H., who married William G. Somers, March 12, 1849. He died April 13, 1880, aged fifty-seven. They had one son, William B., who died February 29, 1868, aged three months. Caleb Dustin was engaged in the lumber business with his son-in-law. He married second, Mary G. (Kelley) Gilman, daughter of Moses Kelley and widow of Col. Eliphalet C. Gilman. Franklin Dustin, another son of David, went to St. Augustine in the ’30’s and never returned. Dudley B., the youngest, was to take care of the old folks and have the farm, but Dudley and Betsey Pierce had a quarrel and she went with another man. Dudley grew restless and uneasy, and believing there were better chances in the world than the farm offered, sometime in 1825, gave up his place to his brother Joseph, and followed the western trail, until he reached the banks of the Williamette in Oregon, where he long resided and died, February 2, 1878, aged seventy-five years. He first went to Ohio; then to Iowa, where he lived until 1849. In Oregon he received 320 acres of land and became a man well filled with worldly riches, which descended to his four sons. There were two Betseys, daughters of Jonathan and Ruth, one of them died young and the other married Rev. Jonathan Hazeltine of Hebron, November 30, 1820, a Methodist preacher, who, when public opinion protected mobs and outlawed abolitionists, braved the whole of that bad element by denouncing the sin of slavery everywhere.
Joseph Dustin, another son of David, was born October 25, 1795, and died at one o’clock April 3, 1877. He was an old man with a young heart, and all the days of a long life manifested a hearty interest in all questions that occupied the public mind. Politics, religion, schools, town affairs, — upon all [page 501] subjects he had decided opinions and up to the day of his death, was engaged in active business. He possessed a very tenacious memory of men and events, and possessed a large fund of information upon the occurrences of his last seventy years. No man has ever had so precise knowledge of all matters relating to the titles to real estate in Canaan. In connection with Hon. Daniel Blaisdell, he became the owner of all the undivided land in town. These lands consisted of corner lots, gores, and small patches, that fill in between hundred-acre surveys, and the looking up these surveys made him an authority upon boundary lines and titles. He was cheery and affable, and as his years increased, he delighted more and more in the society of children and youth. He had large charity for young men who were sowing their wild oats. For he had been young himself once and had sown an abundant crop. While still a young man, he became interested in religion. He had been Godless, often-times recklessly wild, exhibiting great contempt for the teachings of Elder Wheat’s ponderous sermons, and the long prayers of his solemn deacons. But his hour of repentance came and he was a changed man ever after. He became an enthusiastic Methodist and was a liberal and cheerful supporter of the institutions of that church, sometimes making up from his own purse any deficiency there might be in the year’s appropriations. He married on Thanksgiving day, November 27, 1818, Sally, daughter of Judge Daniel Blaisdell. Fifty-nine years they traveled the long road upon which they set out, and as “Brother Joe” and “Sister Joe,” they ended their long lives. Brother Joe carried the mail for many years and no boy ever failed to get a ride. He held many town offices and was a selectman in 1844 and 1847.
Mrs. Dustin survived her husband and died March 18, 1885. She was born June 17, 1799. They had two sons and three daughters: James, who died September 20, 1826, aged six years; John B., born September 13, 1821, died single, April 18, 1851; Emeline, born December 12, 1822, died April 20, 1891, married Simeon Hadley, they moved to Lowell, Mass., where he died in 1853; they had two children, Lizzie and Emma, who married a Sleeper, and had two children, Ethel and Grace, who [page 502] married a Stevens and had one child, Hazel; Rebecca A., who lived and died at home unmarried April 4, 1889, aged fifty-nine, and Harriet B., who married Mark Purmont, and after his death in 1878, came back to the old farm. She kept a millinery store before her marriage at East Canaan, and was burned out when Barney Bros. store was destroyed in December, 1872. She afterward, with the assistance of her father, built the building now occupied by the post office and carried on the same business.
Daniel Dustin, son of Jonathan, married Deborah Barber February 8, 1789, and had one daughter, Susanna, born April 8, 1791. Samuel Dustin married Eunice Martin, February 19, 1791, and had two children, Nathan, born November 14, 1791, and Sophronia, born March 24, 1795.