David Austin is my 5 times great grandpa and another ancestor who qualifies me for DAR (ancestor A132403) . The first image below shows his official service as recorded in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War (Ancestry.com. Vol 1, p 355).
He was born to Zebediah Austin and Sarah Gutterson Austin in Methuen, the fourth of seven children. Methuen is just north of current day Lawrence, Massachusetts along the New Hampshire border, with the Merrimack River bordering the town on the south. At age 21, David marries Lydia Austin, whose parents are Hezekiah Austin and Judith Harris Austin. Here is a spot for deeper genealogical research! The names of David and Lydia’s children, Hezekiah and Judith’s children and Zebediah and Sarah’s children are all intertwined. In fact, after Lydia dies and David marries Elizabeth Whittemore, they name at least one child the same name as those born to Lydia. Often if a child died, the next child of the same sex would be given that name, so I figured Silas born in 1770 to Lydia and David must have died since the Silas “my youngest son” the executor of David’s will was born to Elizabeth in 1789. Not so. Both Silases lived to be old men.
Lydia and David had at least eight children, all but one were born in Methuen. The youngest daughter, Achsah was born 5 June 1779 in Dracut. Lydia died in 1780.
David married Elizabeth Whittemore on 13 Dec 1781 in Dracut. They had at least five children. They appear in the 1790 census in Dracut, but at some time they moved quite a long way north into current day Maine, 155 miles north of where he was born. David’s will names many of the children I found, and a description of the land they lived on in Maine along the Androscoggin River.
