COMPENDIUMOF BIOGRAPHY OfHenry 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 with in its limits but few horticulturists and agriculturists as experienced in these two branches of husbandry as the gentleman whose name stands at the head of this biographical notice. He is of French extraction and remotely of ante-Revolutionary descent, 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 wife Elizabeth 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 of Jeremiah 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 last alluded to, married Elizabeth Diltz, a native of Kentucky, but reared in Ohio.  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 age of 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 was principally confined to the extracting of teeth. He also bled people occasionally and was the & quot;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 the new 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 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.