Person · 1777 - 1849

Joel Richardson

Born	1777-01-17 Billerica, Massachusetts
Died	1849-05-03 Billerica, Massachusetts
Father	Ebenezer Richardson
Mother	Rebecca Walker

Joel Richardson (1777 to 1849) was a gunsmith who owned the Joseph Locke House in Billerica Centre for the last eleven years of his life. He was born in Billerica on January 17, 1777, a son of Ebenezer Richardson and his first wife, Rebecca, and so a half-brother of Eleanor (Richardson) Bennett, the daughter of his father's second marriage, who later gave the town the Bennett Library. His wife was named Susan, and their daughter Susan E. was born in Boston about 1828.

In December 1838 he bought from Justin Smith, a Newburyport merchant, for $3,500, the large Federal house on the corner of the Boston road and the road to Carlisle (now River Street) that Judge Joseph Locke had built in 1811, with about three acres. The First Universalist Society, organized in January 1842, put up its meeting house on the corner of his land, and on April 25, 1842 he sold the society the lot under it, 90 feet on the road and 55 feet deep, for $213, the society promising to keep up a good board fence between its lot and his (see Universalist Church).

His daughter Susan E. Richardson married John C. Hutchins, a jeweller from Montpelier, Vermont, on January 11, 1849. Joel Richardson died of old age on May 3, 1849, aged 72. His will left the house to his widow Susan for as long as she remained his widow, and then to the Boston lawyers William Minot and William Minot Jr. as trustees for his children. Mrs. Richardson was still living in the house in 1871, and in 1872 the trustees sold it to Albert R. Richardson. The 1851 map marks the neighboring house on River Street "Preston and Richardson", and the 1875 and 1889 maps "J. Richardson".

Joel Richardson

Joel Richardson

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