All of the information about Jesse Bastian and his descendants comes from Jeanie Bostian. I helped her connect her ancestor Barbara Mertz, wife of Jesse, to the John David Mertz line and in that way established our cousin relationship. But Jeanie gets the credit for stimulating my interest in straightening out the record as it relates to the fact that it was the Longswamp Mertzes who moved en masse to Northumberland County in the late 1780's.

A newspaper notice of her death dated 11 Sep 1858 (she died a few days earlier) gave her age as 56y, 7m, 26d.