HISTORIC ST. MARYS: Samuel Dusty

The home at 195 Station St. in St. Marys was built in 1879.

By Mary Smith

The rather blurry photograph with this week’s column, taken about 75 years ago, shows the two-storey, white brick house that still stands at 195 Station Street. Built in 1879, it was sold that same year to Samuel Dusty, one of the first settlers in St. Marys. He was a boot and shoemaker by trade and for his first 30 or so years in town, he and his family lived above his shop on Church Street North near the market square. When he was well established and one of his sons was able to work along with him, he felt he could live on premises separate from his business. Dusty was a determined man and dedicated to his work.

Samuel Dusty was born in the Niagara region in September 1826, the son of Anthony Dusty and Mary Beaudier who had moved to Ontario from Quebec. They were descendants of Huguenots – members of a protestant sect from France who had been persecuted for their religion. Samuel’s ancestors fled to North America, settling on Ile d’Orleans, Quebec. The family tradition was that the name “Dusty” was an English corruption of the French surname “D’Auste.” Samuel was the eldest of Anthony and Mary’s children. A brother Edward was born in 1827, and two sisters, Nancy and Mary, arrived soon after. When Samuel was nine, Edward eight and Nancy just three years old, both their parents and their baby sister, Mary, died in a terrible fire that destroyed their home.

A Scots family took in the three young orphans, and perhaps at this time their surname was settled as “Dusty.” The head of the household may have been a shoemaker, and the boys became his apprentices. When they were old enough to move out on their own, both Samuel and Edward earned their living as boot and shoemakers. They went in different directions, however. Edward went to eastern Ontario and settled in Reach Township in Ontario County. By the 1861 census, he was married with three children. Samuel travelled west, and by the late 1840s, records show that he was a property owner in the village of St. Marys. The brothers kept in touch: Edward named one of his sons “Samuel” and Samuel named one of his sons “Edward.”

In St. Marys, Samuel may have begun working with George McIntyre, another boot and shoemaker, who was about the same age. George was a member of a large Scots farming family in Fullarton Township, just north of St. Marys. He was one of several brothers in that family who left the farm and moved into St. Marys to become businessmen. In December 1848, Samuel Dusty married 18-year-old Janet McIntyre, George’s sister. By the 1851 census, they were the parents of a little boy, named George. Nancy Dusty either followed or accompanied her brother, Samuel, to St. Marys. Although records of her life are scarce, she first married Thomas LaMarche. They had a son, Norman, born in the early 1860s. Thomas LaMarche died, and sometime in the late 1860s, Nancy remarried. The 1871 census shows her as the wife of James Jardine, a blacksmith. He was a widower with several children from his first marriage. Seven-year-old Norman LaMarche was also a member of this St. Marys household. By 1891, Nancy was again a widow, earning her living as a “tailoress.”

In 1858, Samuel Dusty built a two-storey limestone commercial block on the northwest corner of Queen and Church Streets. He set up his boot and shoemaking business in a portion of the building that faced onto Church Street. George McIntyre, his brother-in-law, had his storefront nearby, facing onto Queen Street. Another brother-in-law, John Sanderson (who was married to Janet’s sister, Agnes McIntyre) had a lumber business just to the southeast. Their investment in this part of downtown St. Marys gave Dusty, McIntyre and Sanderson considerable influence as the local council decided whether a new town hall should be “downtown” – along Water Street, close to the grist mill by the Thames River, or “uptown” at the intersection of Queen and Church Streets. The uptowners won and a two-storey frame town hall was erected on the northeast corner of the intersection. That’s where the first council meeting was held in 1864 when the village of St. Marys was raised to the status of a town. Samuel Dusty rented the front portion of his block to Alexander Beattie. His general store, A. Beattie & Co., prospered on that corner for many years.

By the time of the 1871 census, Samuel, age 44, and Janet, age 40, had six children living at home – all boys. (Four other little boys had not survived childhood.) Janet gave birth to her eleventh and twelfth children – twins – in 1872 when she was 42. The twins were a boy and a girl – Janet had a daughter at last! The little girl was also named Janet, but often called Jessie. Edward Dusty, the oldest surviving son, was listed in 1871 as a shoemaker, age 19, working with his father. By the 1881 census, Edward was married with two little boys of his own. There were more changes to come. In 1879, Samuel and Janet Dusty and the half dozen of their children still at home moved into a new house, set on a spacious double-lot on the northwest corner of Station and Peel Street, just a short walk across the Church Street Bridge to the boot and shoe shop on the market square.

Set well back from Station Street, the house was built into the Peel Street hill. From the front, or south façade, it appeared to be a two-storey house. But, at the back, most of the lower level was below ground. A short set of steps led up to an enclosed back porch opening from the upstairs hallway. Perhaps it was used as a sleeping porch on hot summer nights. For a cross breeze, a door at the south end of the hall opened onto a balcony over the entrance porch. There were four bedrooms, two on each side of the central hall.

On the lower level, the front entrance led into a wide central hall with a staircase that turned at a large landing. On the east side, a parlour ran the full length of the house from north to south. On the west side were the dining room and the kitchen. The photograph shows a two-storey frame addition that was rather awkwardly attached to the main brick building, perhaps 20 years after it was built. It may seem out of keeping with the brick house but in 1900 piped municipal water became available in St. Marys. Rather than convert one of his existing rooms into a bathroom, Samuel Dusty chose to build an addition. Bathtub, sink, and toilet were on the upper level, nearest the bedrooms, and a new kitchen with running water was on the ground level. The earlier kitchen was converted to a pantry.

Samuel Dusty sold this house in 1906 to Isabella Donald whose family had lived on a farm just east of St. Marys, now the Gowan Brae portion of the golf course. Other relatives took over the farm and she moved into town with an unmarried son and daughter. Isabella brought strawberry plants and raspberry canes from the farm. She found space for a large vegetable garden beside the house and carried on all the family’s traditional activities of growing and preserving fruit and vegetables. On the front lawn, there was a grape arbour and lovely beds of perennials. Maple trees along the front of the lot screened the house from the sawmill across Station Street. When the last of the Donalds died in 1963, the house was sold and converted into apartments, thus losing many of its original features.

Janet Dusty died in 1901, age 70, and Samuel died in 1912 at the age of 87. His obituary in the St. Marys Journal acknowledged him as one of the first merchants in St. Marys and one of the earliest members of the St. Marys Methodist Church. Six of his original 12 children survived him but they had all left St. Marys, taking the name and the memories of the Dusty family with them.