Thomas Richardson
Thomas Richardson (about 1702 to 1738) was a Billerica farmer, the eldest son of Thomas Richardson Jr. and his wife Abigail, and a grandson of Sergt. Thomas Richardson. His birth, about 1702, is not in the town records. He was about sixteen when his father died in March 1718. The will gave him, as eldest son, a double share, named him executor with his mother when he came of age, and put him with his uncle Andrew Richardson in charge of the family if his mother married again. In 1732 he joined his mother and the other children of age in asking for the division of his father's estate, and he was paid for attending on the committee that divided it.
He married Sarah Ditson, a daughter of Hugh Ditson. Their children were Thomas (1724), who lived in Westford, had six children and whose will was proved in 1803, James (1728), and Amity (1729), who married Ebenezer Wilson of Bedford in 1747. On the minister's rate of 1733 he was taxed 16 shillings 9 pence.
He died in 1738, leaving a small estate. The inventory taken on December 5, 1738 by Samuel Danforth Jr., Jacob French and John Marshall, shown to them by his widow Sarah as administratrix, came to 40 pounds 15 shillings in personal estate, mostly household goods, old tools and "About ten Baskets of Indian Corn not Drest", and the real estate was "About Twelve Acres of Land with his Buildings" and a right in the estate of a John Richardson, deceased, presumably his brother. The debts reckoned later that month came to 68 pounds, among them the funeral charges and fifty pounds owed to a Mr. Hutchinson of Boston. Sarah's own will is dated November 29, 1752.