Thomas Richardson

Thomas Richardson was born in Woburn on October 4, 1645, a son of Thomas Richardson, one of the pioneers of that town. Two of his sisters married the Billerica settlers Michael Bacon and John Baldwin, and Thomas followed them. He was accepted as an inhabitant of Billerica in August 1667 and became the tenant of the Church Farm, the land the Cambridge church owned in the south part of the town, after the death of John Parker. He farmed it for some thirty years before he held a title: Richard Daniel bought the farm and later sold the larger part to Richardson and Joseph Walker, and Hazen says Richardson did not acquire his title until 1699. On January 5, 1669/70 he married Mary Stevenson, daughter of Andrew Stevenson of Cambridge.

The town records show a young man pushing against the rules. On November 11, 1670 he was convicted of "taking two loads of cedar from our swamps and transporting ye same out of town contrary to our towne orders" and fined thirty shillings, which Sergeant Thomas Foster paid for him in return for twenty-two poles of "four-raile fence." A few months later the town committee, "with John French and Thomas Richardson," obtained from Richard Daniel a private cart way across the Shawshin farm from Richardson's lot to the country road. In King Philip's War his family was assigned to Foster's garrison at the south end of the town, and in 1690 he served as a soldier in Captain Samuel Gallup's company in the unfortunate expedition against Canada.

Sergeant Richardson was a selectman in 1688, 1691, 1694, 1704, 1709 and 1718 and Billerica's Representative to the General Court in 1703 and 1704. In 1694, when the town learned that "sum persons have eregularly marked out Land in our Towne comons," it sent him, Edward Farmer and Joseph Walker "to deface & extinguish & abolish all such marks, & to pluck up all such stakes."

His wife Mary died on June 7, 1690, and on December 29, 1690 he married Sarah, widow first of Hugh Ditson of Reading and then of Thomas Patten, the father of Deacon William Patten. His children included Mary, who married Edward Farmer; Thomas; Andrew; Nathaniel; Jonathan; and Ruth, who married John French, son of John French; three daughters named Mary and a son Elnathan died as infants. In 1714/15 and 1717/18 he deeded land to his son Jonathan, including seven acres "on the northward of said Jonathan's house," at the corner of the present Webb Brook and Allen Roads, where the family homestead later passed to his great-grandson Thomas Richardson. He died on February 25, 1720/21, aged 75, by the town record and his gravestone in the Old South Burying Ground (Hazen gives February 5). His widow Sarah died on November 20, 1734.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 117: Thomas Richardson (no. 1), Church Farm tenancy, Canada expedition 1690, deputy, marriages, children
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 27: the Woburn settlers; Thomas Richardson occupant of the Church Farm after John Parker
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 41: Mr. Daniel sold the larger part of the Church Farm to Richardson and Walker
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 186: 1670, Thomas Richardson fined for carrying cedar out of town
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 93: 1671 private way from Thomas Richardson's lot to the country road
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 110: 1675 garrison orders, Thomas Richardson assigned to Sergt. Foster's house
7. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 199: 1694, sent with Edward Farmer and Joseph Walker to deface marks in the town commons
8. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 304: list of representatives (Thomas Richardson 1703-04)
9. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 305: list of selectmen (Thomas Richardson 1688, 1691, 1694, 1704, 1709, 1718)
10. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), deaths p. 388: Thomas Richardson Sr., Sergt., Feb. 25, 1720-1, aged 75 (gravestone, Old South Cemetery)