Person:John Bastin (3)

John Bastin was a brother to both Thomas Bastin, Jr. and William Bastin. He is believed to have accompanied Thomas Bastin, Jr in the move from Caswell County to east Barren County, based on stories handed down in the family of Thomas Bastin, Jr.

John's first wife has not been identified, but is thought to have been Pricilla Baldwin, or, possibly, Henrietta Ford. John is also believed to have moved to Pulaski County, KY somewhat earlier than 1830, but to have gone back to Caswell County to assist Thomas Bastin, Jr. and his family in their joint 1830 move westward to east Barren County, KY.

John first wife died, and John re-married. He married his second wife, Margaret Keath, in Edmonson County, KY on 05 July 1837. (The marriage bond lists no witnesses; only a clerk.) Margaret was forty years younger than John, and John raised a second family with her. In 1840, John and Thomas Bastin Jr both appear on the US Census for east Barren County, KY. (They had arrived there in December 1830, just missing the 1830 Census for that area!) The 1840 Census is the only census in that area on which John appears, for he moved north to Indiana in the early 1840's.

Family stories handed down through the family of Thomas Bastin, Jr. claim that the brother who assisted Thomas Bastin, Jr. in the trek over the mountains moved North to Indiana, or Illinois. This seems to fit, for John and his wife Margaret subsequently appear on US Census records in Monroe County, Indiana after their move northward in the early 1840's.

Incidentally, Edmonson County, which is where the marriage record of John's marriage to Margaret Keath is recorded, is the county in the NW quadrant of the previous map, and is the county in which most of Mammoth Cave is located.

In further confirmation that the John in Monroe County, IN is the same John Bastin, additional clues exist. John's young wife was born in Kentucky, and he was born in North Carolina. The John in Monroe County, IN was born in NC, and his (much) younger wife was born in KY, fitting the known birth locations. Also, John had a son named Hiram H. Bastin. Hiram evidently moved from Adair County, KY (the western portion of which is now part of Metcalfe County, KY) to Indiana somewhat later than when his father, John, moved. John's grandson, John E. Bastin, a son of Hiram H. Bastin, was born in Adair County, KY in 1839 from National Archive records. (John E. Bastin served in the Federal Army from Indiana, married a Cirgin in Morgan County, IN in 1866, and died in 1892.) Since the area where the BASTIN Family settled in KY in 1830 was around the tri-county border of then Barren, Green, and Adair counties, from which Metcalfe County, KY was formed in 1860, and this is the same location where John and Margaret Bastin -- and Hiram Bastin and his family -- all lived, in close proximity to the families of Thomas Bastin, Jr. and his children, and their descendants, all the pieces fall in place. From these clues, it is obvious that this must be the same John Bastin as the son of Thomas and Hannah Brockman Bastin!

• 75 ON 1850 CENSUS