Joshua Abbott

Joshua Abbott
Born 1685-06-16
Died 1769-02-11 Billerica, MA
Select Board
In Office 1724 - 1757
Town Clerk
In Office 1727 - 1730
Preceded by Benjamin Tompson
Succeeded by Benjamin Tompson
Town Clerk
In Office 1731 - 1757
Preceded by Benjamin Tompson
Succeeded by William Stickney
Deacon of the First Parish
In Office 1733 - 1769
Children Joshua (b. 1722-10-28)


Joshua Abbott was born on June 16, 1685, a son of John Abbot of Andover, whose father, George Abbot, had been one of the first settlers of that town. He had settled in Billerica by June 10, 1710, when he married Rebecca Shed, daughter of John Shed. In 1714 he bought from Ebenezer Farley, for 150 pounds, the old Golden More homestead just east of the meeting-house, a "Messuage or Tenement" bounded by the County Road on the west and the road to Andover on the north, with outlying land by the Great Swamp and near Prospect Hill. By trade he was a cordwainer, or shoemaker, as he called himself in his will. In December 1714 the selectmen's accounts paid "Joshua Abbot for Ringing ye bell" seventeen shillings.

Rebecca died on April 7, 1720, and on March 2, 1720-1 he married Dorcas Whiting, daughter of Oliver Whiting. The children of the first marriage were Rebecca, John (who settled in Westford), Sarah, the twins Mary and Hannah, and Elizabeth; those of the second were Joshua, Dorcas, Oliver, David and Lydia, who died in 1748 at sixteen. The younger Joshua followed his father as town clerk and deacon, and David's son Blaney Abbot was town clerk in his turn.

Abbott was one of the men the town trusted with its money and its records. On November 6, 1721 it chose him, with Ebenezer Farley and John Needham, a trustee of Billerica's share of the Province Loan Fund, 396 pounds to be lent to townsmen "at five per cent" and "taking good Personal security"; when the town took its part of a second loan in April 1725 it chose him again, with Benjamin Tompson and Deacon William Patten. He was a selectman in 1724 and 1725 and almost every year from 1727 to 1756, some thirty years in all, and Town Clerk from 1727 to 1729 and again from 1731 to 1756, twenty-nine years by Hazen's count. In 1733, Hazen notes, "the clerk, then Joshua Abbot, began to enter the tax-lists in the Records, and from that date these valuable lists are found regularly."

He was also a deacon of the church. When the town voted in 1737 to build its third meeting-house, he served on the building committee with Deacon Samuel Hill, Benjamin Tompson, Esq., Ensign Benjamin Shed and Sergeant Benjamin Frost; the house, sixty by forty feet, was raised on May 24, 1738, and Abbott was among the highest payers of the building rates who were offered the first pews. In March 1746-7 "Deacon Joshua Abbott" sat with Benjamin Tompson and Captain Thomas Kidder on the committee that conferred with Rev. Samuel Ruggles about a colleague, a step that led to the ordination of Rev. John Chandler that October.

In April 1757 Abbott and his wife sold about thirty acres "near the Meeting house," between East Street and Long Street, "with all the Buildings thereon," to Oliver Abbot, a retailer, for 270 pounds. Dorcas died on December 23, 1765, aged 72. Deacon Abbott died on February 11, 1769, "allmost" eighty-four years old, and his will was lodged in the probate court that April.



References

  1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 2 (Abbot family: parentage, marriages, children, death)
  2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 201 (town charges, December 1714: paid to Joshua Abbot for ringing the bell)
  3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 202 (trustee of the Loan Fund, 1721 and 1725; as clerk began entering the tax lists in 1733)
  4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 175 (building committee for the third meeting-house, 1737)
  5. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 180 (Deacon Joshua Abbott on the committee to confer with Mr. Ruggles about a colleague, 1746-7)
  6. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 304 (list of town clerks: Joshua Abbott 1727-29, 1731-56)
  7. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 306 (list of selectmen: Joshua Abbot 1724-25, 1727-29, 1731-48, 1750-56)
  8. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850 (1908), p. 339 (deaths: Deacon Joshua Abbot, Feb. 11, 1769, and his wife Dorcas, 1765)
  9. Farmer, Historical Memoir of Billerica (1816), p. 28 (list of deacons of the church)
  10. Middlesex County Probate File Papers, case 36 (will of Joshua Abbott, cordwainer, lodged April 4, 1769)


Deed References

Date Type Grantor Grantee Summary Property Recorded
1714 Deed Ebenezer Farley and Elizabeth Farley Joshua Abbott Golden More House 30/516 (South)

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.