Roger Toothaker

Born	1672-11-27 Billerica, MA
Died	1746-03-09 Billerica, MA
Physician
In Office	1710 - 1745
Father	Roger Toothaker
Mother	Mary Allen
Spouses	Sarah Rogers (m. 1703-07-20 ) Phebe Baldwin (m. 1718-08-07 ) Mary
Children	Mary (b. 1705-10-26) Roger (b. 1712-07-28)

Dr. Roger Toothaker was born in Billerica on November 27, 1672, the son of Roger Toothaker and Mary Allen of Andover, who had married on June 9, 1665. His father had come to New England as a small child in the ship Hopewell in 1635 and was a stepson of Ralph Hill. Admitted an inhabitant of Billerica on November 9, 1660, the elder Roger settled on the lot his stepfather gave him in the great common field on the east side of the Concord River below the great bridge. His house there, probably the northernmost in town when it was built, stood where the Middlesex Canal later left the river; it is remembered as the Roger Toothaker House on Rogers Street. Farmer wrote that tradition made the settler a physician from England, "though it is probable he was not regularly bred," and that "his son, grand-son, and great-grandson, all of the same name, have the appellation of physicians." This Roger was that son.

His childhood was a hard one. In 1683 the selectmen spoke to his father about "many things amiss in his family"; the town gave the family charitable aid, and two of the children were put out to Joseph Walker and Edward Farmer. In 1692 the witchcraft accusations reached the family. His aunt Martha Carrier was hanged at Salem, and on May 18 a warrant was issued against "Roger Toothaker of Bilrica" on the complaints of Elizabeth Hubbard, Ann Putnam and Mary Walcott; the elder Roger died in the Boston prison, where a coroner's jury found on June 16, 1692 that "he came to his end by a naturall death." His mother was examined on July 30 and confessed, saying the devil had promised "to keep her from the Indians & she should have happy dayes with her sone"; she was tried before the Superior Court at Charlestown in January 1693 and found not guilty. On August 5, 1695 Indians raided the north part of the town: Mary Toothaker was killed and her youngest daughter Margaret was carried into captivity. Roger was then twenty-two.

He kept the homestead and practiced as a doctor; the town records call him "Dr. Toothacher." When Christopher Osgood's mill-dam on the Concord River flooded his meadow, the town voted in March 1710 to defend Osgood against the damages, and on March 9, 1710/11 the proprietors on the east of the Concord River granted "Dr. Roger Toothacher all the land on the east side of the highway leading to his house, that belonged to Farley's and Marshall's lots," in exchange for his "medow lot, flow'd by Mr. Osgood's mill." He is listed in the tax list of 1733 as Doctor Roger Toothaker.

He married Sarah Rogers, probably a daughter of John Rogers, on July 20, 1703; she died on March 8, 1717/18, and on August 7, 1718 he married Phebe Baldwin, daughter of John Baldwin, who died on September 19, 1736. A third wife, Mary, survived him. His children were Margaret, born 1704, who married Ebenezer Felch of Reading; Mary, born 1705, who married John Rogers and then Dr. Benjamin Atherton; Grace, born 1708; Sarah, born 1710, who married John Levestone; Roger, born July 28, 1712, also a physician; and Martha, born 1717.

His will, which he signed with his mark on June 2, 1733, describes him as a physician of Billerica and gave his homestead "Containing One Hundred acres" with its buildings, with his meadows, to his son Roger "and the Heirs Male of his Body," with the use of one end of the house for any unmarried daughters; in February 1735 he set down the portions he had already paid his daughters Mary, Margaret, Martha, Sarah and Grace. Dr. Toothaker died on March 9, 1745/6. The will was proved on April 14, 1746, with his son as executor, and the inventory of May 26 valued "the Homestead Containing One Hundred acres more or less together with the Buildings there on" at 850 pounds old tenor. The entail he created held the farm in the family until his grandson, another Dr. Roger Toothaker, broke it in 1771 and sold the house in 1782 to William Rogers, who built the brick house that now stands on the site.

Roger Toothaker

Roger Toothaker

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