Josiah Bowers

Josiah Bowers was a Billerica farmer and town officer of the generation that carried the town into the Revolution. He was born in Chelmsford on January 10, 1719/20, a son of Capt. Jonathan Bowers and Hannah (Barrett) Bowers, who moved the family to Billerica before 1729. His elder brother was Capt. William Bowers, with whom he long held land in common.

On January 17, 1744 he married Abigail Tompson, daughter of Benjamin Tompson, whose will of 1753 left her a legacy. They had ten children: Abigail (1744), who married Amos Muzzy of Lexington in 1764 and was the grandmother of Rev. Artemas Bowers Muzzy; Hannah (1746), who died at seven; Josiah (1748); Joseph (1751), who died in 1772; Benjamin (1754); Sarah (1756), who died at ten; Andrew (1758), a Harvard graduate of 1779 who settled in Salisbury, New Hampshire, and represented that town for several years; Denison (1761); James (1763), a Harvard graduate who became rector of the Episcopal church at Marblehead; and Hannah (1765), who married Rev. Jacob Norton of Weymouth. Abigail died on November 5, 1771, aged 49. On January 28, 1773, at Groton, he married Maria Trowbridge, daughter of Rev. Caleb Trowbridge of Groton. Their only child, Sarah, born December 11, 1776, married Luther French. Maria died on September 29, 1787, aged 56. His will names a third wife, Elizabeth, who survived him.

Bowers farmed land near the meeting house and along the roads toward Woburn and Bedford, some of it shared with his brother William, to whom he sold his half of a twelve-acre pasture held in common between them in 1762. In 1755 he was treasurer of the town's proprietors, the body that still held the undivided common land, and paid out the last of their money to the proprietors at two shillings two pence an acre right. He was a selectman in 1769 and 1770, and by 1771 he was known as Captain Bowers.

In June 1774, after the Boston Port Bill, the town put him with Ebenezer Bridge and Ralph Hill on the committee that drafted its resolutions, and he sat on its Committee of Correspondence. In 1776 he was chosen to the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, and that October he served with Rev. Henry Cumings, Joshua Abbot, Dr. Timothy Danforth and Col. William Tompson on the committee that drew up the town's answer to the proposal for a new state government (see American Revolutionary War). On the tax list of December 1776 he paid 3 pounds 14 shillings 10 pence.

He died on April 20, 1794, aged 75, as his gravestone in the Old South Cemetery records; Hazen gives the date as April 29. His will, made August 7, 1793 and proved November 6, 1794, let his widow Elizabeth live in his house with cows kept on the farm, left his eldest son Josiah only "my large Bible which with what he has already had is his full portion out of my Estate," and divided the rest equally among the other children. His son Benjamin declined to serve as executor, and his son Andrew administered the estate.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 15, BOWERS 3
2. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850, deaths p. 345 (Capt. Josiah, father of Capt. Josiah, Apr. 20, 1794)

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.