Oliver Farmer

Oliver Farmer was the youngest son of Edward Farmer, who had come to Billerica from Warwickshire about 1671, and his wife Mary. He was born on February 2, 1685/6 and spent his life on his father's farm east of the road south of the town center, the land of the present Oliver Farmer House on Boston Road. On December 10, 1711 his parents gave him "our homestead," sixty-four acres "with one dwelling house barn stables and outhousing and orcharding," bounded south by the homesteads of Thomas Dutton and John Jefts, north by the highway to Mill Swamp and west by the Concord River, keeping the use of half of it for their own lives; the deed was not recorded until 1724. When his father died in 1727 Oliver was appointed administrator. The estate held no land, for Edward had already deeded it to his sons, and the inventory listed bonds from Oliver, Thomas and John Farmer.

On January 24, 1716/7 he married Abigail Johnson, a daughter of William Johnson of Woburn and granddaughter of Capt. Edward Johnson. Their children were Abigail, born in 1717, who died in infancy; Abigail, born in 1718/9, who married Jonathan Richardson; Mary, born in 1721, who married William Baldwin; Sarah, born in 1723, who married Edward Jewett of Rowley; the twins Betty and Rebecca, born on May 31, 1726, who married the brothers Zebadiah Rogers and Samuel Rogers; Oliver, born in 1728; Isabel, born in 1731, who married Benjamin Warren and died at Hollis, New Hampshire, in 1793; Edward, born in 1733/4; and John, born in 1736.

Before he died he passed the homestead to his son Oliver by a gift that was never recorded. He died on February 23, 1761, aged seventy-five according to the town record; his gravestone in the Old Corner Burial Ground gives February 15 and his age as seventy-seven. He left no will, and his son Edward, as administrator, returned an inventory of only 31 pounds 8 shillings 10 pence: clothing, tools, a cow, a heifer, five sheep and ten acres of woodland west of the Concord River. His widow married Capt. James Lane of Bedford on May 27, 1766, and died on February 25, 1773, aged seventy-five.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 49, FARMER 5
2. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850, deaths p. 359 (Oliver Sr., Feb. 23, 1761, a. 75; gravestone Feb. 15, a. 77, G.R.3)

Title References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted; Probate # is a Middlesex probate case, Ctf a Land Court certificate of title.