Joseph Walker

Joseph Walker came to Billerica from Woburn. He was a son of Deacon Samuel Walker of Woburn, whose father Richard Walker was in 1630 one of the first settlers of Lynn, and he had three brothers, Samuel, Israel and John, "whose posterity in Woburn and elsewhere has been numerous and eminent," in the words of town historian Henry Hazen.

The town admitted him with some caution. On the 26th day of the sixth month of 1667 it "granted to Joseph Walker liberty to be an inhabitant in their town, in case hee can provide for his owne comfortable subsistance," promising him "some convenience of land" afterward, and on March 22, 1668 it gave him rights in the undivided common lands "to the proportion of a five-acre lot, or half a single share." He settled south of John Kittredge, beyond Bare Hill, where his early allotments included ten acres "South-East of his dwelling-house." His later grants of land lay east of the Shawshin River, and in 1699 he bought from Richard Daniel the easterly part of the Church farm beyond the river, where he probably lived afterward. His nephew Samuel Walker sold part of that farm to Seth Putnam in 1719.

Walker became one of the town's trusted men. In the garrison orders of 1675, during King Philip's War, he was assigned to Sergeant Thomas Foster's house, the garrison for the south end of the town. In 1682 the selectmen ordered Edmond Chamberlain, placed under their government by the county court, "to live with his master, Joseph Walker," for six months "after the manner of a Journeyman," and when Dr. Roger Toothaker left his wife and children to the charity of their neighbors, the selectmen apprenticed two of the children to Walker and Edward Farmer. He served as a selectman from 1686 to 1694 and again in 1700, and represented Billerica as deputy to the General Court in 1689. In 1694 the town sent him, with Thomas Richardson and Edward Farmer, "to deface & extinguish & abolish" the marks and stakes of persons who had irregularly laid out land in the town commons.

On December 15, 1669 he married Sarah Wyman of Woburn, daughter of John Wyman, born there April 15, 1650. Their children were Sarah, who died in infancy in 1670; Joseph; a second Sarah, who married Benjamin Johnson of Woburn; Elizabeth, who married Samuel Fitch; Hannah, who married Nathaniel Hill; Susanna, who died in infancy; John; Benjamin; Jacob; and Seth, who about 1750 was among the pioneers of Charlestown, New Hampshire, then known as Number Four. Sarah Walker died January 26, 1728-9, and Joseph Walker died in July 1729.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 152: Joseph Walker (origins, 1667 admission, land grants, 1699 purchase)
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 153: wife Sarah Wyman, children, deaths of Joseph and Sarah Walker
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 110: 1675 garrison order assigning Joseph Walker to Sergeant Foster's house
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 131: Toothaker children apprenticed to Joseph Walker and Edward Farmer
5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 195: Edmond Chamberlain ordered to live with his master Joseph Walker, 1682
6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 199: Joseph Walker Sr. sent to deface illegal marks in the commons, 1694
7. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 304: list of Representatives (Joseph Walker, 1689)
8. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 305: list of Selectmen (Joseph Walker, 1686-94, 1700)
9. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), p. 327: marriage of Joseph Walker and Sarah Wyman of Woburn, Dec. 15, 1669
10. Vital Records of Billerica (1908), p. 401: deaths of Joseph Walker (July 1729) and his wife Sarah (Jan. 26, 1728-9)