The Dustin's came to New England before 1640, and at that time their surname was Durston. They fought in the Revolutionary War. In the early 1800's the Dustins entered the wilderness of western New York and lived in settlements among the six nations of the Iroquois in Genesee County. My third-great grandmother, Roxanna Mahalia Dustin, was born in that area, LeRoy, Genesee County, NY, in 1833. Her uncle Caleb Dustin, was among the first Methodist ministers in New England. The Dustins lived just miles away from Palmyra, New York. Certainly Caleb attended the large Methodist Genesee Conference revivals. Caleb Dustin preached to John Young, father of Brigham Young.

Peter Dustin was the first member of the Dustin family to join The Church of Jesus Christ on June 9, 1830, a little over a month after the Church was organized on April 6th. Bechias Dustin, Roxanna's father, and his niece, Cyrena Dustin, soon followed. Hannah Loveland Dustin and her brothers Chester and Levi, gathered in Missouri and forged their faith in the fires of persecution. Roxanna's brother, Seth Dustin, witnessed with his father-in-law, Chauncey Loveland, the death of the prophet Joseph Smith.

The family later moved from New York to Ohio and met the Welker family there, where my third great grandfather, John R. Welker was born in 1826. Further migration of the Dustin and Welker families took them to Missouri for four years, then to lllinois by the mid 1840's. After the murder of Joseph Smith in the Carthage Jail on June 17, 1844, the Mormons moved again to Council Bluffs, Iowa, while they prepared to migrate across the plains to Utah with the Mormons.

John and Roxanna were married in Iowa, April 2, 1850, before the trek west started. They had three children, but one daughter, Mary Amelia, died young. Their first child was my second-great grandmother, Roxana Louisa Welker (later Madsen), and their other child, a son, John Eller Welker, was born later after the family arrived in Willard, Box Elder, Utah, with the Mormon Pioneers. Then in 1863 the Mormon church sent the family to settle an area North of Utah, just over the border in Bloomington, Bear Lake, Idaho. This migration was led by Charles C. Rich of the Mormon Church.

After the families lived there for about twenty years, in 1883 they decided to move south to a warmer climate, because Roxanna had asthma and the family wanted a longer growing season for their crops. John Welker had been a pioneer and a farmer all of his life, no matter where he lived, so they pulled up stakes and once again moved to a more promising area.

The following is an excerpt from my great-grandmother, Dortha Roxana Madsen Rollins McKinney's diary from 1940, recalling the family move from Idaho to Arizona in 1883. Dortha was the first-born daughter of Louisa Roxana Welker Madsen (John and Roxanna Welker's daughter) and Louisa Roxana's husband, Christian Madsen, who immigrated from Denmark in 1853 when he was just nine years old. At the time of the move, Dortha was only 14 years old and her brother John was 12 years old.

"Grandma was afflicted with asthma and some times would almost choke to death. How often we children have cried and prayed and feared each attack would be her last, which was before the move to Arizona in 1883. So for some reason or other of which I do not know, (I was about 14 years old at the time) one or two families from our town drifted into Arizona and began to write back about the land of milk and honey! Yes, they said that very thing! Where the sun shone more than 12 hours a day, fruit tress bloomed in February, raised 5 crops of alfalfa. November days were like summer, when in Idaho we had several feet of snow. There were many other breathtaking descriptions about this fairyland. This was along about 1881 and from then on this correspondence rolled in. So is it any wonder that a large number of families, mostly relatives, began to pull “the stakes” they had driven so many years before, and prepare for the big move, starting out again with a covered wagon cavalcade.

Then on September 23, 1883, they started for Arizona, sun kissed land, and it lived up to its reputation as far as sunshine was concerned. And when on November 5th we pitched camp in the suburbs of the little town of Safford, Arizona, where we made our home, the sun was warm, trees were green, acres of growing alfalfa greeted our eyes, but some how the picture had faded in a degree through the dangers and hardships we were subjected to as we traveled all those weary miles. It looked different to what we expected. We were tired and homesick. Never the less, every man, still a true pioneer, began to build a home and grandfather and grandmother Welker were among the first to begin. In their passing they left hosts of friends and a better world for having lived in it.

Grandma Welker drove a team and light spring wagon all the way from Bear Lake County Idaho to Safford, Graham County, Arizona, a distance over mountain trails as such they were. (NOTE: the total distance was nearly 1,000 miles from Bloomington, Bear Lake County, Idaho, to Safford, Arizona.) In some places the men had to cut trees and break a way through. After several days of travel, the company would camp to let the teams rest for a day or two. Then the washing and baking was done and the load repacked. All the money that was received for possessions sold was carried in the wagons. Three thousand dollars in gold was put some where among their things. We were never molested although we met some very suspicious characters and traveled through Indian territory and at times Indians on horse back rode along for some distance, filled with curiosity, and had they desired, could have made a tremendous haul of everything.

On that long trip from September 23 to November 5th, there were no serious illness or accidents or loss that I remember. God’s protecting care sheltered us and as was the habit at home, our parents knelt in prayer morning and night and gave thanks for this protection and asked for guidance in the great task they had undertaken again as pioneers in a new and strange land."

NOTE: Some members of the Welker and Dustin families chose not to leave Idaho for Arizona, and a few that did make the move, ended up returning to Idaho or Utah later after they found that Arizona was not to their liking.

_________________________________________________

More about the Dustin/Durston family from comes this website:

http://dustinfamily.com/Seth_Dustin_for_the_web_07_2010.pdf

We find the name of Thomas Durston among the signers of a letter to the governor of Massachusetts, dated Northam, and (Dover) March 4, 1640. They subscribe themselves. "We, the inhabitants of Northam." We also find the name Thomas Durston among those admitted freemen at Kittery, in November, 1652.

Thomas Durston was named as a soldier in the King Phillips War with Lieutenant Benjamin Swett and his men as of June 1676. This is likely Thomas Durston born 1652, rather than his father or grandfather. To quote George Wingate Chase in reference to the name Durston: "It was originally written Durston and changed to Duston about the time of the above named Thomas Duston. This is shown, not only by our town records, buy by Duston's petition to the General court in June 1697."

Because of the notoriety of Hannah Duston/Dustin (1657-1738), wife of Thomas Durston/Duston (1652), much is known about this generation of Dustins. However, many noble ancestors have been a part of this family, though their histories remain unwritten. Roxanna's and her brother Seth and other siblings were likely raised hearing stories about these ancestors, especially Thomas and Hannah Duston. Their grandfather, Ebenezer, and great-grandfather, James Dustin, were Revolutionary War Soldiers.