George T. Dustin, born September 11, 1844, in Dubois County, Indiana, was a respected liveryman in Auburn, Nebraska. His father, Timothy Dustin, died before George’s birth. His mother, Louisa T. (Combs) Dustin, relocated the family to Bureau County, Illinois, in 1846, and later to Peru, Nebraska, in 1860. George supported his family from a young age, taking various jobs including working as a teamster. He spent four years in Montana hauling freight and later turned to breaking prairie in Nemaha County. In 1874, he started a livery business in Peru and eventually moved to Auburn in 1890, expanding his operations significantly. He married Hulda Capwell in 1880, and they had seven children. George was active in local politics as a Republican and was involved in the Masonic fraternity.
George T. Dustin, the liveryman of Auburn, Nebraska, is one of the successful and respected businessmen of the town. He was born in Dubois County, Indiana, on September 11, 1844, son of Timothy and Louisa T. (Combs) Dustin, the former a native of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and a direct descendant of Hannah Dustin, and the latter born in Tennessee in 1816. Timothy Dustin was by trade a ship carpenter. In August, before the birth of the subject of this sketch in September, Timothy was making a trip on the Ohio River, was taken with cramp colic, and died on the boat. Thus, George T. is of posthumous birth. There were four children in the family—James C., John M., Amanda, and Laura F. All grew up, married, and reared families. Amanda, wife of Daniel Macken, died at Denver, Colorado, July 19, 1898, at the age of fifty-seven years. James C. died at Cripple Creek, Colorado, a year later, leaving eight children, their mother’s death having preceded his. John M. died in October 1901, in Lancaster County, Nebraska, leaving three children. Laura F. is the wife of Thomas J. Metcalf, of Auburn, Nebraska, and is the mother of nine children, five of whom are graduates of the State Normal School and three of the State University; two of the sons, Clyde and Charles Dustin Metcalf, are ministers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, in western Nebraska.
At the death of her husband, Mrs. Dustin and her little family were left in limited circumstances, she having only eight hundred dollars. She remained in Indiana for two years and then, in 1846, she moved to Bureau County, Illinois, where she bought eighty acres of land and where she reared her family, the children doing their part to assist in the support, and when possible attending the district school near their home. When he was only ten years old, George T. “worked out” and brought home to his mother his earnings. Here they lived until 1860, when the Dustin family, in company with others, emigrated to Nebraska, making the journey by wagon in true emigrant style and being three weeks en route, arriving at Peru, Nebraska, on September 1st. They brought with them two horses and three cows, and George T., then a youth of sixteen, walked most of the way. Peru then could boast of about ten houses. The Dustin family took up their abode in the village and rented land for farming purposes. On May 9, 1862, the mother died, and the family then scattered.
At that time a profitable business in the west was teaming, and in the spring of 1863 George T. Dustin was employed by Ingraham & Christie, at the rate of twenty dollars per month, to drive six yoke of oxen to Colorado Springs, and was gone from Peru eight months. The next year he drove four yoke of oxen from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Montana, where he remained four years, employed there in driving mule teams, hauling freight. On his return trip to Nebraska, in 1868, he was accompanied by his brother John, as he also was on some other occasions, and they had many interesting experiences. From 1869 to 1875 Mr. Dustin was occupied in breaking prairie in Nemaha County, at $3.50 to $4.00 per acre. From his youth up he was a hustler and a money-maker, but for some years he did not learn the worth of money and the importance of saving it. In 1874 he turned his attention to the livery business in Peru. He rented a barn, owned one horse and buggy, and went in debt for two more horses, and continued in business there until 1881. In this venture, he saved two thousand five hundred dollars, with which he then bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres on the Peru bottoms. He cultivated this land for one year. The season was a wet one, however, and the crop was not a success, and he was glad to sell out at a loss. Next, we find him in Brown County, Nebraska, where he invested in another farm. He spent four years in Brown County and during that time owned five farms, all of which he sold at a profit. On Thanksgiving Day, 1889, he disposed of his last farm in that county and in January of the following year came to Auburn and bought the Minnick transfer line, the outfit consisting of six horses, two omnibuses, a buggy and wagon, and a barn forty by forty feet in dimensions, the purchase price being $3,100. As showing the success with which he has met in this business, we state that Mr. Dustin’s establishment now consists of frame and brick buildings, the former forty by eighty feet, and the latter thirty-six by one hundred and forty feet, and his barns are stocked with good horses, usually to the number of twenty-five. Each year he buys and sells many horses. Mr. Dustin also owns his home and has a quarter of a block where he exercises his horses.
Mr. Dustin married, January 8, 1880, Miss Hulda Capwell, a native of Scranton, Pennsylvania, born in 1861, daughter of James Capwell of that place. By this marriage are four sons and three daughters, viz.: Winnifred, Soame, Plann, Ralph, Laura, Nellie S., and John. Miss Winnifred is a teacher in the public schools of Auburn.
Politically Mr. Dustin is a Republican. He served nine years as constable and was the Republican nominee for the office of county commissioner, but withdrew his name in favor of C. E. Ord, the present county commissioner. Fraternally Mr. Dustin is an F. and A. M., and his religious creed is that of the Lutheran church, while Mrs. Dustin is a Baptist.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.