COMPENDIUMOF BIOGRAPHY
Of Henry County Indiana
B.F.Bowen
1920
Page347, 348, 349
Surnames in 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 Jersey and was a
son of Jeremiah Gustin, the son of John Gustin, who was born on the island of
Jersey, on the northeast of France, and was the founder of the family in
America. 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 John Gustin 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 on the old Gustin place at
Red Lion until 1845, at which time they were the parents of six children,
namely: Lemuel, who left his home about the year 1859, lived in Illinois and
Dakota several 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 to Asa Smith, died about ten years ago;
Benjamin Franklin, or Doe, ashe was familiarly known, died in southwest
Missouri, and Martha, who was first married to Miles Cummins, is now the
widow of Frank Smith. The Gustin familycame to Madison County, Indiana, and
settled on the county line, where Samuel B. cleared up a farm of one hundred
acres from a tract he had bought in the wild 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-eight Mr. 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 a Republican 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 was born April
15, 1827. In 1829 the Cummnins family came to Indiana in wagons with
several other families and settled one mile east of Middletown, but two
years later bought and 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's land 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 and fifty 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 same site), cleared up the higher ground, converted the
timber into cord wood and sold 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 has been 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 pioneer
settlers 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.