The collection includes Dustin’s articles, correspondence, reports and notes on Isle Royale, notebooks, and personal items, such as biographical information, newspaper clippings (copies) by/about him, an autograph album, and family correspondence. A number of his publications and another collection on George A. Custer are also housed in the Clarke Historical Library.
Biography:
Fred Dustin, noted historian of Saginaw, Michigan, was born at Glen Falls, New York (State), as Frederick Greene O’Donnell, the son of Jennie Greene and James O’Donnell, on October 12, 1865. Because his mother died when he was 17 months old, he was raised by his aunt and uncle, Sarah and Ira M.W. Dustin. Fred moved with them to various parts of New York (State). In 1882, after being educated through the eighth grade in Gloversville, he went to work at the age of 15 in a sawmill for $1/day.
On April 9, 1887, Dustin moved to Saginaw. He worked at Kimball and Merriam’s Lumber. After a year, he worked at N. and A. Barnard Co., and began a retail lumber business that became part of Bliss and Van Auken Lumber Co. Until the spring of 1890, Dustin stayed with Barnard as foreman in charge of the retail department. He then began to work as a contract builder of small houses. Soon, Dustin quit contracting work to manufacture the Florin Washer (a washing machine). This business venture was successful until the panic of 1893. By 1897 he was in debt. Between 1897 and 1900, Dustin’s washing machine contract expired and he eventually closed his business. Dustin then worked as his ward enumerator for the 1900 census. His next job was working as one of the first route postal carriers of a 29 mile route from the Old Saginaw Post Office through Saginaw, James, Swan Creek, and Thomas Townships.
After 15 months of delivering mail, Dustin worked as a weigh-boss at the Chappel and Fordney Mine for a winter. He then contracted to build houses. Around 1905 Dustin was appointed as a part-time deputy state oil inspector.
In 1917, a surgical operation for a serious medical problem occurred, causing him permanent problems. In September of the same year, Dustin became the employment manager of a large shipbuilding plant in Saginaw. In December 1917, he contracted typhoid fever, from which he suffered over five years of pain and the permanent crippling of his right leg. The illness also left Dustin in heavy debt.
To pay his debts, Dustin worked as the custodian of the West Side Masonic Temple from early 1920 to early 1929. In 1925, he suffered an attack of facial erysipelas which resulted in more debt and the loss of an eye. From 1929 to 1944, Dustin sold used books.
In 1929 and 1930, he served as a special agent for the University of Michigan (UM) to create archaeological surveys and reports of Isle Royale, Michigan. Afterwards, the Cranbrook Institute of Science, in Bloomfield, Michigan, employed Dustin to examine and report on prehistoric earthworks in Ogemaw County, Michigan.
Dustin researched and wrote many books about Saginaw history, Native Americans, and Gen. George Armstrong Custer, as well as Michigan’s prehistory and archeology. His collection of prehistoric artifacts is housed at the UM. For Dustin’s outstanding work as a historian and an archaeologist, he received the UM Regents’ Citation of Honor in 1955.
Dustin married Mary A. Stoker in November 1888. Politically, he was an active Republican. Dustin died a month after suffering a stroke, at the age of 90, on May 15, 1957, in Saginaw. (This information from the collection.)
