COMPENDIUMOF BIOGRAPHY
OfHenry County Indiana
B.F.Bowen
1920
Page347, 348, 349
Surnamesin this biography are: Gustin, Fuller, Betts, Diltz, Cummins, Smith,
Harvey,Nixon, Brunk, Hirpp,
ISAAC H. GUSTIN
Henry County, Indiana, has withinits limits but few
horticulturists and agriculturists as experienced in thesetwo branches of
husbandry as the gentleman whose name stands at the head ofthis biographical
notice. He is of French extraction and remotely of ante-Revolutionarydescent,
was born in Warren County Ohio, August 14, 1824, a son of Samuel B.Gustin, of
Pennsylvania, whose father, Jeremiah Gustin, was born in New Jerseyand was a
son of Jeremiah Gustin, the son of John Gustin, who was born on the islandof
Jersey, on the northeast of France, and was the founder of the family
inAmerica. John Gustin and his wifeElizabeth came from the isle of Jersey to
America in 1675 and died in 1719 at Falmouth (Portland), Maine.
Hisson Jeremiah, who was born in 1691, married Mary -, who wasborn
in 1692. They settled in Sussex County, New Jersey, and there Mrs.
Mary Gustin died in 1762, and JohnGustin in 1771. Jeremiah Gustin,son
of John and Elizabeth Gustin, married Bethany Fuller, and died at Red
Lion,Warren County, Ohio, in 1825 and 1829 respectively. Jeremiah Gustin, son
ofJeremiah and Bethany (Fuller) Gustin, married a Miss Betts, of
Cincinnati,Ohio, and died also at Red Lion at the advanced age of ninety-two
years. Samuel B. Gustin, son of the Jeremiah lastalluded to, married
Elizabeth Diltz, a native of Kentucky, but reared inOhio. Samuel B. and his
wife lived onthe old Gustin place at Red Lion until 1845, at which time they
were theparents of six children, namely: Lemuel, who left his home
about the year 1859, lived in Illinois and Dakotaseveral years, then at
Storm Lake, Iowa and is now a resident of the state of Washington;
Isaac H.,the subject proper of this biography, is next in order of birth;
Rebecca, thethird child, was married to John Cummins, but with her husband is
now deceased;Jeremiah died in middle life in southwest Indiana;. Susan, who
was married toAsa Smith, died about ten years ago; Benjamin Franklin, or &
quot;Doe," ashe was familiarly known, died in southwest Missouri, and
Martha, who was firstmarried to Miles Cummins, is now the widow of Frank
Smith. The Gustin familycame to Madison County, Indiana, and settled on the
county line, where SamuelB. cleared up a farm of one hundred acres from a
tract he had bought in thewild woods and on which he resided until his death
March 31, 1874, at the ageof seventy-six; his wife died a few years
previously at the age of sixty-eightMr. Gustin was a mechanic and had a shop
in which he made guns, wheels,coffins, etc., and was also an impromptu
dentist, but his work in this line wasprincipally confined to the extracting
of teeth. He also bled peopleoccasionally and was the "handy" man
of his neighborhood. He was amember of the Christian church, was in politics
first a Wig and afterwards aRepublican and had held the office of justice of
the peace. Isaac H. Gustin assisted in clearing up thenew farm and remained
on the place three years after coming to Madison County,when he married,
November 9, 1848, Miss Elizabeth, a daughter of James and Lucy(Harvey)
Cummins, natives of Monroe County, Virginia, where Elizabeth wasborn
April 15, 1827. In 1829 theCummnins family came to Indiana in wagons with
several other families and settled one mileeast of Middletown, but
two years later bought land west of the village, which land is now
the propertyof James L. Gustin heirs. In 1832 there had seven or eight
acres been cleared and the family lived ina round-log cabin, which
was replaced by a hewed-loghouse, and here Elizabeth Cummins
was married at the age of twenty-one. For one year after marriage Mr.
Gustinand wife lived on his father'sland and then for a year on her
father's. In 1850 he entered land in the IndianReservation in Madison County,
ten miles northwest of Alexandria, erected a logcabin in the woods among the
howling wolves and laid in provisions sufficientto last him a year. He
cleared up eight acres of the place and set out fruittrees; then he sold the
place for six hundred dollars and for six hundred andfifty bought the farm of
one hundred and sixty acres on which he now lives. Butthis land was swampy
and he was forced to drain it. He then built a hewed-logcabin (which has been
replaced by his present modern dwelling on the samesite), cleared up the
higher ground, converted the timber into cord wood andsold it to the railroad
company; this process was repeated the second year, Mr.Gustin deriving a fair
income from it the meanwhile. Since 1852 this farm hasbeen the homestead,
although Mr. Gustin has sold some of the land to his sons,retaining but
eighty acres for his own use. He had placed one hundred andtwenty-five acres
under cultivation, had laid timber-lined ditches, which werefollowed by mole
drains which in clay soils had a lasting quality of from fiveto ten years and
finally secured the use of the public drains, into which heran tiling at a
cost of six hundred dollars. About three-quarters of the landwas under water
the greater part of the year and roads were invisible, buteventually logs
were rolled together and covered with earth and now good gravel roads
exist wherebefore they were more a matter of imagination than
reality. Besides devoting his attention to the farm.Mr. Gustin has made some
experiments in inventing agricultural machine andgates, for which he has
taken out several patents. In politics Mr. Gustin was first a Whig and in
1848 voted forGeneral Winfield Scott as the presidential nominee of the
party; since 1856 hehas been a Republican, although for a few years he
diverged from his party andjoined the Populists. Mr. Gustin has been a member
of the Christian or NewLight church since thirty-six years of age and
Mrs. Gustin has professed the same faith for forty years. Mr.and
Mrs. Isaac H. Gustin havehad born to them the following family:
Edwin, who lost his life in a gravel pit in 1895 at the age offorty
five years; Cynthia, who was married to Lee Nixon and diedin 1875
when twenty-two years old; Francis Marion, a homeopathic physician atUnion
City; James, who died in 1895 at the age of thirty years, wedded MattieBrunk,
and was the father of five children: Lee, Sylvester, Morton, Ada and
onedeceased; Smith, a resident of Fall Creek township, wedded Sallie Hirpp,
andhad children as follows: Clay, May, Ida and three deceased; Moses,
anagriculturist, is married and is the father of five children as
follows:Montrew, Fredie, Ruby, Ogleve and Argness. The surviving
members of the Gustin family are amongthe most honored of the
pioneersettlers around Middletown and have, always been among the foremost
in developing from the forest thefruitful farm that now adorns and
enriches the country and which have tended to make thetown and
township what they are today. They have certainly richly earned the
enviable standing, whichthey now enjoy.