Abraham Jaquith

Abraham Jaquith was born on December 30, 1701, the son of Abraham Jaquith, who lived in the part of Woburn that later became Wilmington, and a grandson of Abraham Jaquith, who was in Charlestown in 1643. Two of his aunts had married the Durrant brothers of Billerica. In January 1726-7 he married Hannah Farley, daughter of Ebenezer Farley of Billerica; through her grandparents, Caleb Farley and Lydia More, she was a great-granddaughter of the first settlers George Farley and Golden More. In the records of the time he is "Abraham Jaquith Junr of Woburn."

On April 2, 1728 Ebenezer and Elizabeth Farley gave the young couple, as Hannah's full portion, "my homested or house Lott containing about fifty acres" of orchard, pasture, plow land and mowing, bounded partly by Concord Road and partly by the Concord River, "with all the Buildings and fences thereon standing," to be theirs after Ebenezer's death; he died that August. This was the old Farley homestead near the Old South Burying Ground, where George Farley had lived and whose house had been allowed as a garrison in 1675. The house that stood there, the Abraham Jaquith House at 161 Concord Road, was probably built about the time of the marriage, and Abraham's descendants held the farm by inheritance until the twentieth century.

Abraham Jaquith appears on the minister's tax lists of 1733 and 1755, and on the list of 1776, at the age of 74, at the "Jaquith place," beside his son Joseph. Hannah bore him twelve children, the eldest in Woburn and the rest in Billerica: Abraham, Rebecca, Hannah, Ebenezer, Timothy (who died as an infant), Sarah, Benjamin, Elizabeth, Abigail, a second Timothy, Joseph and Mary. Abraham moved to Fitchburg in 1779, Ebenezer and Benjamin to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, and the daughters married into the Needham, Shed, Danforth, French and Fitch families. Joseph (1745-1827), who was at Lexington on April 19, 1775, remained at the Jaquith place, and his son Joseph Jaquith was a selectman in 1814.

Hannah Jaquith died on April 16, 1753. Abraham then married a second wife, Sarah, who died on November 17, 1776, aged 70. Abraham Jaquith died on January 7, 1790, aged 89, and was buried in the Old South Cemetery.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 77, JAQUITH #1 (birth, parents, marriage to Hannah Farley, second wife, death, children)
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 78, JAQUITH #5-8 (sons Timothy and Joseph; grandson Joseph)
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 48, FARLEY #5 (Ebenezer Farley, d. 1728; Hannah m. Abraham Jaquith)
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 204, minister's tax list of 1733 (Jaquith, Abraham)
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 206, minister's tax list of 1755 (Jaquith, Abraham)
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 249, tax list of 1776 with key (Abraham and Joseph Jaquith at the "Jaquith place")
7. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850 (1908), births p. 109 (children of Abraham and Hannah Jaquith)
8. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850 (1908), marriages p. 252 (Hannah Farley and Abraham Jaqueth Jr., Jan. 18, 1726-7)
9. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850 (1908), deaths p. 370 (Abraham, 1790, a. 89, gravestone; Hannah, w. Abraham, Apr. 16, 1753)
10. Wikipedia: Abraham Jaquith House (built about 1725 at the time of the Farley-Jaquith marriage)