Duston-Dustin Family Association

The First Annual Duston Garrison House Muster will be held on Saturday, August 28, 2021 from 10am to 3pm. This event will feature:

• An exhibition of historic militia featuring Benjamin Church’s Company (1675) and the Acton Minutemen (1775)
• Colonial craftspersons and townsfolk
• Guided tours of the 1697 Duston Garrison House

Admission is free! To learn more about this historic site, located at 665 Hilldale Ave in Haverhill, Massachusetts, visit the Duston-Dustin Garrison House Association’s Facebook page.

The 117th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 7, 2021 via Zoom.

Lockdowns are lifting, but to continue in a spirit of COVID-19 caution, once again we will shift our annual meeting into “virtual” mode and meet on Zoom, the free group meeting technology accessed via an Internet-connected home computer or smartphone. Following our global experience with social distancing in 2020, we believe that most of us now have some experience with Zoom. But any DDFA members lacking such devices are urged to seek assistance from a computer-equipped friend and join us.

Once in, set your Zoom connection to “gallery view” and you will see a checkerboard with video images of all attendees at the meeting and they can see you! Zoom allows you to comment, ask questions, and vote on motions.

During the meeting, you might want to refer to the following documents:

• 2020 DDFA Annual Meeting Minutes
• 2021 Treasurer’s Report
• 2021 Historian’s Report

This year we are very pleased to welcome Ms. Sherry Gould of Warner, N.H., and Mr. Darryl Peasley of Contoocook, NH, enrolled members of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, which historically ranged throughout today’s northern New England and is recognized by the State of Vermont. Our guests will describe the Nulhegans’ Abenaki Trails Project, which they founded and manage. The project focuses on the tribe’s historic links to the central New Hampshire towns of Bradford, Henniker, Hillsboro, Hopkinton, Warner, and Washington in the upper Merrimack and Contoocook River valleys. Collaborating with local historical societies, the project aims to educate about the Nulhegan Abenaki and their influence on the area, highlighting and erecting signage at historical Abenaki sites and accentuating the positive influences they have had with Colonial America and the towns their members inhabit today.

The 116th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 8, 2020.

For the safety of all, this year the COVID-19 threat forces a shift of our annual meeting into “virtual” mode! For the first time we will meet on Zoom, the free group meeting technology accessed via an Internet-connected home computer or smartphone. Members lacking such devices are urged to seek assistance from a computer-equipped friend and join us. Please contact us for the link.

Once in, set your Zoom connection to “gallery view” and you will see a checkerboard with video images of all attendees at the meeting and they can see you! Zoom allows you to comment, ask questions, and vote on motions.

By popular demand, Methuen (MA) native Jay Atkinson, author of the acclaimed Massacre On the Merrimack (2015), will return to offer further insight from his research into the captivity experience shared by Hannah Duston and others during the history of colonial America. Autographed copies of Atkinson’s award-winning book may be purchased via credit card (and shipped) before and during the Zoom meeting. We will have more information about how this can happen either before or at the meeting.

Then, guiding us through Thomas & Hannah Duston’s 1697 Garrison House by means of video technology will be Diane Dustin Itasaka, president of the Duston-Dustin Garrison House Association, and “Goodwife Dustin” (Garrison House Association Director Jennifer Emerson). If you have never before had the opportunity to visit this unique Haverhill historical treasure this is the time to do it, safely and economically, with commentary by two of our family’s experts!

The minutes of the 2019 Annual Meeting can be found here.

The 115th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 10, 2019 at the Haverhill Historical Society’s Buttonwoods Museum, 240 Water Street, Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Robert G. Goodby, Ph.D., professor of Anthropology and Honors Program Director at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, NH. Dr. Goodby, originally from Connecticut, has spent the last 35 years studying the long history of the Abenaki in Northern New England, and over his extensive academic career has investigated dozens of Abenaki sites across New Hampshire and Vermont. He is a past president of the New Hampshire Archeological Society and has served on the New Hampshire Native American Affairs Commission and as a trustee of the Mount Kearsarge Indian Museum in Warner, NH. He will review this important tribe’s origins in geographic New England with a focus on its later history with the arrival of European settlers in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Directions: From Route 495 North or South, take Exit 49 and head east 3 miles, following the Visitor Center signs through downtown Haverhill to the Haverhill Historical Society. From Route 95 North or South, take Exit 54, and follow Route 133 to Route 97 to the Haverhill Historical Society.

Bring your lunch, and picnic at the museum. A trip to visit with Goodwife Duston at her 1697 Garrison House will leave after lunch.

(Click here for a PDF version of the meeting notice)

The minutes of the 2018 Annual Meeting are now available.

The 114th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 11, 2018 at the Haverhill Historical Society’s Buttonwoods Museum, 240 Water Street, Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Our featured speaker this year will be Skip Webb, president of the James House Association, Inc. Appearing in 18th Century period dress, Skip will discuss the life of Benjamin James from his life as a weaver in Newbury, Massachusetts, his 1702 marriage to Suzannah Smith, and his purchase of the James House Property in Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1705. He will describe Benjamin James’s construction of the James House in 1723, its surrounding property, and detail what farm life in the homestead was like in the middle 1700s. He will discuss why the homestead is considered an architectural gem worth preservation, and why it has been designated a National Historic site.

He will also review some of the outstanding accomplishments of the James family during the seven generations it occupied the historic homestead.

Directions: From Route 495 North or South, take Exit 49 and head east 3 miles, following the Visitor Center signs through downtown Haverhill to the Haverhill Historical Society. From Route 95 North or South, take Exit 54, and follow Route 133 to Route 97 to the Haverhill Historical Society.

Bring your lunch, and picnic at the museum. There will be a trip to the Garrison House after lunch.

(Click here for a PDF version of the meeting notice)

The 113th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 12, 2017 at the Haverhill Historical Society’s Buttonwoods Museum, 240 Water Street, Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Directions: From Route 495 North or South, take Exit 49 and head east 3 miles, following the Visitor Center signs through downtown Haverhill to the Haverhill Historical Society. From Route 95 North or South, take Exit 54, and follow Route 133 to Route 97 to the Haverhill Historical Society.

Bring your lunch, and picnic at the museum. There will be a trip to the Garrison House after lunch.

The 112th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 13, 2016 at the Haverhill Historical Society’s Buttonwoods Museum, 240 Water Street, Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Directions: From Route 495 North or South, take Exit 49 and head east 3 miles, following the Visitor Center signs through downtown Haverhill to the Haverhill Historical Society. From Route 95 North or South, take Exit 54, and follow Route 133 to Route 97 to the Haverhill Historical Society.

Bring your lunch, and picnic at the museum. There will be a trip to the Garrison House after lunch.

The 110th annual family reunion of the Duston-Dustin Family Association will take place on Saturday, August 9, 2014 at the Haverhill Historical Society’s Buttonwoods Museum, 240 Water Street, Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Directions: From Route 495 North or South, take Exit 49 and head east 3 miles, following the Visitor Center signs through downtown Haverhill to the Haverhill Historical Society. From Route 95 North or South, take Exit 54, and follow Route 133 to Route 97 to the Haverhill Historical Society.

Bring your lunch, and picnic at the museum. There will be a trip to the Garrison House after lunch.