The following information was assembled from numerous sources and cannot be used directly as proof of Qualifying Service or Lineage.
It is considered a research aid and is intended to assist in locating sources that can be used as proof.
State of Service: MA
Qualifying Service: Patriotic Service
Jesse Dustin or Duston was born on 30 September 1747 in Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts.1 He was the son of Jonathan and Susanna (Farnom) Dustin.
He married Elizabeth Swan on 12 April 1768 in Haverhill, Essex County, Massachusetts.1 Among their known children were:
James was born on 26 August 1768 and married Sarah McAllister.2
Mary was born on 19 October 1770.
Ezekiel was born on 17 August 1776 and married Ruth York.2
Peregrine was born in 1778
Jesse was born in 1782 or 1783 and married Lavinia Howard.2
Farnham or Fornum was born in October 1795 and married Catherine Clinch.
Jesse Duston was among the early settlers of Fryeburg, Maine.
They moved to Sudbury, Canada, in about 1778 and gave birth to the first white child born there, named Peregrine. The proprietors gave her a lot of land for this birth.
The family settled on a farm in the lower part of the town, now Hanover, Maine. Being among the first, if not the very first, carpenter on the plantation, Jesse was in a position to render valuable service to the settlers, and tradition gives him a good report. He was in Bethel, Maine, at the time of the conflict with Native American warriors in 1781. He was Inspector of Mills in 1787 and was Captain of a local militia company.
There is a Jesse Dustin in Su(a)dbury-Canada in 1790 Census. Sudbury-Canada Plantation became part of Bethel, Maine in 1796. In the1800 US Census - Jesse Dustin was living in Bethel, York County, Maine, with a household comprised of:
- 1 male under
10 (Farnham), 1 male 16 - 25, (Peregrine, Joseph or James), 1 male
45 and over Jesse, 1 female under 10 (Susan?), 3 females 10 - 15 (Polly ?, ?), 1 female 45 and over - Elizabeth (Swan) Carpenter.
At that time, Bethel would have been in York County. After 1805, Bethel was in Oxford County.
Jesse’s date of death is not certain, but we do find a note written on 16 February 1814 by Ruth (York) Dunston, widow of the Ezekiel Duston, regarding her late husband’s estate, notes her husband died with “children of sufficient age, and has Father is aged and infirm, and don’t wish to have any think [sic] to do with the settlement of said estate.” This strongly suggests the Patriot was still alive on that date.
Sources:
Vital Records of Haverhill, Massachusetts
DAR Ancestor Number: A035519
The New England Descendants of Ralph Farnum, page 239
Send a biographical sketch of your patriot!
Patriot biographies must be the original work of the author, and work submitted must not belong to another person or group, in observance with copyright law. Patriot biographies are to be written in complete sentences, follow the established rules of grammar, syntax and punctuation, be free of typographical errors, and follow a narrative format. The narrative should unfold in a logical manner (e.g. the narrative does not jump from time period to time period) or have repeated digressions, or tell the history of the patriot's line from the patriot ancestor to the author. The thinking here is that this is a patriot biography, not a lineage report or a kinship determination project or other report published in a genealogy journal. The biography should discuss the qualifying service (military, patriotic, civil) of the patriot ancestor, where the service was rendered, whether this was a specific state or Continental service, as well as significant events (as determined by the author) of the patriot's life. This is the entire purpose of a patriot's biography.
Additional guidelines around the Biography writeup can be found here:
Send your submission1, in a Microsoft Word compatible format, to patriotbios@sar.org for inclusion in this space 1Upon submission of a patriot biography, the patriot biography becomes the property of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and may be edited to conform to the patriot biography submission standards.