Person · 1698

Golden More

Died	1698-09-03 Billerica, MA
Spouses	Joanna

Golden More, whose name the town clerks also wrote Moore, Goldin and Goldinge, came to Billerica from Cambridge, which had granted the lands of Shawshin. In 1658 he bought the original right of James Parker, one of the three purchasers of the Dudley Farm, who was moving on to Chelmsford and later Groton, and so became one of the twelve holders of lots on the Township, the part of the new town laid out on the Cambridge grant. On November 9, 1658 he signed, with the other inhabitants, the covenant between the proprietors of "Mr. Dudley's farme" and those on the Township that fixed how both would share in the town's lands.

His house lot of fourteen acres lay "upon the Township," bounded south by East Street, east by Ralph Hill Jr. and west by Long Street, now Boston Road: "Upon this land was his dwelling-house set." He soon had nine acres more adjoining it. In 1661, when the country road to Andover was laid out across "ye middle of the house-lot of golden more," the town gave him the old way of East Street in recompense, "and ye said golden declared himselfe fully satistied." Hazen placed his house near the later Samuel Baldwin place, his land taking in both sides of Andover Street. In 1660 the town let those who rode to meeting build sheds for their horses "below the Hill between the meeting house and Goldinge More's barn," and in January 1663-4 it ordered "golden more's 50 acres of Land that ye Town granted to him" laid out beside the common field lots toward the Indians' plantation.

More married Joanna, the widow of John Champney; she died on February 18, 1675-6. Hazen names three daughters: Hannah, born September 15, 1643, who married John Hastings; Lydia, who in 1669 became the second wife of Caleb Farley, son of George Farley; and Ruth, who married Daniel Shed in 1670. A niece of his married James Kidder. When King Philip's War drove the town into garrisons, the selectmen and militia committee ordered on October 8, 1675 that Thomas Patten's house be a garrison "to entertaine Goldin Moore, & Samuel ffrost, Jno Kidder, Roger Toothaker & John Trull," seven soldiers and five families; John Trull was a neighbor on the Township.

Caleb Farley, after some years in Woburn and Roxbury, came back to Billerica and lived with his father-in-law. In 1698 the "aged" More gave Farley, "my Son in Law Caleb ffarley Senr," all his land, housing, malt house, orchard and town right, "particularly all my homestead whereon my dwelling house stands with all ye building upon it, and ye orchard," with his meadows on the Shawshin River, in return for twenty pounds paid to his creditors and his keep for life: meat, drink, clothing, a horse, a room and firewood, three barrels of cider a year and the fruit of one pear tree and two apple trees. Golden More died on September 3, 1698, aged about 89. His grandson Ebenezer Farley sold the homestead in 1714; its site, east of the Common on Boston Road, is recorded here as the Golden More House, where Paul Hill built The Walnuts in 1873.

Golden More

Golden More

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