Mills of Mystery: Dustin

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This is the last in the series, and it's an anticlimax because I can't find much information about Dustin or his mills (and yes, it appears there were two Dustin mills).

To refresh our memory — Solon Robinson said this on the topic:

Walton's saw mill on Turkey Creek, Wood's and also Dustin's on Deep River and Taylor's on Cedar Creek, were all building during this year [1837]. But with the exception of Wood's they might as well never have been built for the good they have done. The same may be said of the one called "Miller's Saw Mill" on Deep river. Dustin's, Miller's and Walton's have been in utter ruins for years, on account of the difficulty of making a dam of dirt stand, and Taylor's is about half the time without water, and the other half without a dam.[1]

Later remarks in the same paper make it clear that that Dustin had abandoned one early mill and then started another that was still operating in 1847:

There are five saw mills in operation in the county, to-wit: Earle's, Dustin's and Wood's on Deep River; McCarty's on Cedar Creek and Foley's on a branch of Cedar Creek. (There are three dilapidated ones, to-wit: Miller's and Dustin's old mills on Deep River, and Walton's on Turkey Creek, the last about being repaired.)[2]

Upon checking Early Land Sales, Lake County, we find several Dustins (or "Dustons") buying land.

Most of the purchases are in Section 29, Twp. 35 N., Range 7 W., shown here on the 1874 Plat Map:



(Click on images to enlarge)

It's not clear which "parts" of the northeast quarter were involved in the first and third purchases, hence the question marks. But clearly there is a stretch of river through many of those purchased acres where, assuming suitable topography, a Dustin might have built a mill.

We find a couple more Dustin ("Dusten") purchases in Section 16. On July 19, 1842, "Dusten, T.M. and V.E., Jr.," bought just over one acre described as "Lot No. 5." We don't know exactly what constituted Lot No. 5, but we've already seen Benajah Wilkinson buying 38 acres of Lot No. 5 in 1840, probably somewhere near the crossing of the Deep River by present-day Ainsworth Road.

The same pair (T.M. and V.E.) also bought "Lot No. 4" (about 12 acres) in Section 16 on June 15, 1846. I have no theories about where that land was.

Speaking of T.M. Dustin, "T.M." could stand for Thomas McDonough, which would make the 1846 purchase interesting in the light of this sad announcement we find in the New York Evening Post of February 26, 1845, in a column simply headed, "Died":


(Click on image to enlarge)

"Inflammation of the lungs," whatever that meant in Deep River[3] in January 1845, carried off three members of the Dustin family, all related to Ebenezer Dustin, who might have been Senior or Junior, for all I know. I cannot find records of any of these graves.

Ebenezer Dustin shows up in the 1840 Census …


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Ancestry.com.

… which doesn't tell us a whole lot. By the way, Isaiah Beebe (second name below Ebenezer Dustin) married Deborah Dustin in 1839, per the Porter County marriage records.

I can't identify any Dustins or Beebes[4] in the 1850 or later censuses.

I will just add a couple of earlier references I have found: first, Goodspeed and Blanchard tell us that in 1837, T.M. Dustin paid $5 for a license to sell groceries from a store on the Deep River in North Township.[5] Secondly, the same source reprints George Earle's first survey of the town of Hobart, showing that it was acknowledged May 7, 1847, before Ebenezer Dustin, a justice of the peace.[6]

And that's all I've come up with. So, in summary: I don't understand the Dustin family, don't know where they came from (aside from New York State) or where they went; I don't know where either of Dustin's mills were; and I don't even know which Dustin built them.


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[1] "History of Lake County, 1833 – 1847," Lake County 1929, p. 48.
[2] Ibid., p. 59.
[3] The state is abbreviated "Ia." There is a town called Deep River in Iowa, but there is no Lake County, and Iowa did not become a state until 1846, so its abbreviation would have been something like "Ia. Ty. (or Terr.)." Also, the Iowan Deep River did not exist in 1845.
[4] Per Solon Robinson, Isaiah Beebe was living in the spring of 1846 but had died by 1847 ("History of Lake County, 1833 – 1847," p. 46).
[5] Porter and Lake Counties (Goodspeed/Blanchard), p. 422.
[6] Ibid., p. 525.