Joseph F. Talbot

Joseph F. Talbot (about 1866-1933) spent his working life at the Talbot Mills in North Billerica, the woolen mill built by his uncle, Governor Thomas Talbot. He was born in Texas but grew up in Billerica: he entered the Howe School in 1880 and graduated with the class of 1884, and he was a member of the well-known T. R. & T. baseball club, organized in 1887. On October 7, 1891, he married Martha B. Bartlett of Lowell. Their daughter Elizabeth was married to W. Marcus Towne of Philadelphia at All Souls' Church in Lowell in September 1922.

By 1897 he was assistant superintendent of the Talbot Mills. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 he became acting superintendent, and he was soon appointed superintendent in place of Lieut. Thomas Talbot, who resigned to accompany his mother on a trip to Europe. He ran the mill under the company's president, Frederic S. Clark, and its treasurer, Thomas Talbot Clark, and was still listed as superintendent in 1915; afterward he served as secretary of the corporation, and he held that office for the rest of his life. He was also president of the Talbot Mills Library Association, which kept a library and reading room for the mill's workers.

Talbot took a steady part in the town's business. He was warden of Precinct Two at the state election of 1894, and in 1895 town meeting put him on a committee to study the need for more schoolroom space at North Billerica. As a sinking fund commissioner he helped manage the fund that paid off the Town Hall debt from 1897 to 1908, and he was one of the first three commissioners of the sinking fund for the Talbot School loan, serving from 1901 to 1916. Elected a water commissioner in March 1907, he chaired the board in 1908 and 1909, joined the New England Water Works Association, and stayed on the commission until 1913. He served on the Finance Committee from 1910 to 1914. He moved the appointment of a committee to revise the town by-laws, served on it, and moved the adoption of its amendments, and in 1910 he headed the committee chosen to get plans and estimates for a new bridge over the Concord River near the dam at North Billerica. Late in life he was a park commissioner from 1926 to 1932, and in 1930 and 1931 he sat on the local committee on unemployment that registered jobless townspeople and tried to find them work.

Talbot died unexpectedly at North Billerica on May 13, 1933. The town clerk recorded his age as 66 years and 11 months; the Associated Press report of his death gave it as 75. The town report for 1933 remembered him in its In Memoriam page as a former member of the Park Commission.

References

1. In Memoriam, 1933
2. Catalogue of the Howe School (1897), graduates of 1884: Joseph F. Talbot, assistant superintendent, Talbot Mills
3. Marriages, 1891 (Joseph F. Talbot and Martha B. Bartlett, October 7)
4. Lowell Sun, 23 February 1924, "From the old Sun" (appointed superintendent of the Talbot Mills; born in Texas, Howe School graduate)
5. Boston American, 13 May 1933, "Joseph F. Talbot, 75, Mill Official, Dies" (AP; nephew of Gov. Thomas Talbot)
6. Annual Town Meeting, 1907 (elected Water Commissioner for three years)
7. Annual Town Meeting, 1910 (committee on a new Concord River bridge at North Billerica)
8. Report of the Committee on Unemployment, 1930