AND HIS DESCENDANTS. BY SAMUEL DUNSTER, ATTLEBOROUGH, MASS. VERI TAS CENTRAL FALLS, R. I.: E. L. FREEMAN & Co., STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 1876. es 71 0926 INTRODUCTION. When the life of Henry Dunster was published in 1872, a genealogy of the male branches of his descendants, as far as known, was added in an appendix. Some of the female descendants were grieved that they and their children could not be noticed. This just appeal could only be met by urging the want of space allotted, and the difficulty of identifying many of them after having parted with their patronymic. It is our purpose, as far as we are able, to amend this acknowledged wrong and add more information, not then accessible, of those who retain the name, as well as those who by marriage have dropped it. The name Dunster signifies a dweller upon a dun, or down, and is of Saxon origin. There is a market town in Somersetshire, England, and a castle there by that name. Hence, we suppose, the origin of the crest(Book of Family Crests, Vol. I., page 155, and Vol. II., plate 85, No. 25,)-"Dunster, out of the top of a tower, ar. an arm emboss, vested gri., cuffed of the first, holding a tilting spear, sa. But no knowledge or intimation has ever reached the writer that that or other crest was ever used or referred to by the American head of the family. He was quite too democratic for that, as his whole life shows. There are several families in this country by the name besides those descended from President Dunster, the earliest of which appears to be Charles Dunster, who, as Mr. Oliver Dunster, his great grandson, of Barnardsville, New Jersey, states was one of the twelve proprietors of all South Jersey, and owned a great deal of land in West 66 |