My Canadian Branches ~ The Inventive William H. Bustin of Saint John, New Brunswick and Watertown, Massachusetts

William Hermon Bustin began making harnesses for horses at 15 in Saint John. The second oldest son out of the ten children born to William H. Bustin, Sr. and Agnes "Nancy" Wilson, he left his apprenticeship after only two years and ran away in 1831.

He landed in Boston, Massachusetts, and began working for William Bell, whose shop was on Bromfield Street, near the Granary Burying Ground.

There is evidence to suggest that William at first traveled back and forth from Saint John to Massachusetts, but at age 33 he married a young lady 14 years his junior from Watertown, Massachusetts, Margaret McMaster. It was Watertown where they raised their sizable family and where he would live out his days.

1869 Boston City Directory for William H. Bustin
Father and Son

In 1881, near the end of his working life, he applied for and was granted a patent, No. 236,547, for a "Shaper for Horse-Collars":

William H. Bustin, another one of my 2nd great grand Bustin uncles, died in 1904, probably at his home on Franklin Street in Watertown, Massachusetts, and is buried in Common Street Cemetery there.

Photo Credit:

Harness Makers
(http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/foner/jacksonian_america/week7-labor_issue/harness_maker.gif)

Pointed Collar
(https://pixabay.com/en/pointed-collar-collar-horse-239902/)

Sources:

1850 US Census; Census Place: Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts.

1880 US Census; Census Place: Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts; Roll: 542; Family History Film: 1254542; Page: 11A; Enumeration District: 420; Image: 0465.

1900 US Census; Census Place: Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts; Roll: 667; Page: 20A; Enumeration District: 0987; FHL microfilm: 1240667.

Ancestry.com. Boston, 1821-1850 Passenger and Immigration Lists [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2003.

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.

Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Find A Grave, database and images (http://findagrave.com : accessed  6 July 2015), memorial page for William H Bustin (1814-1904), Find A Grave Memorial no. 120784177, citing Common Street Cemetery, Watertown, Massachusetts.

"Massachusetts, Boston Passenger Lists, 1820-1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCHC-RYZ : accessed 1 July 2015), Bustin, 1845; citing p. 1968, Ship , NARA microfilm publication (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll ; FHL microfilm 419,914.

"Massachusetts, State Census, 1855," Database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQ43-Q7K : accessed 1 July 2015), Wm H Bustin, Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 953,952.

The Daily Sun (Saint John) 1 Jan 1895, via Daniel F Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics, PANB (http://archives.gnb.ca/Search/NewspaperVitalStats/Default.aspx?culture=en-CA)

"United States Census, 1860," Database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MZHG-1HT : accessed 1 July 2015), Margret Bustin in household of Wm H Bustin, Watertown, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; from "1860 U.S. Federal Census - Population," database, Fold3.com (http://www.fold3.com : n.d.); citing p. 52, household ID 349, NARA microfilm publication M653 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 803,510.

U.S. Patent No. 236,547 (http://www.google.com/patents/US236547)