Josiah Richardson and Mercy Parish

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LIEUTENANT JOSIAH RICHARDSON (1665–1711), son of Captain Josiah Richardson and Remembrance Underwood

MERCY PARISH (b. 1678), daughter of Robert Parish and Mercy Crispe

Josiah Richardson was born on 18 May 1665 in Chelmsford. [Ref] Lieutenant Josiah Richardson died on 17 October (or September) 1711, age 48, in Chelmsford. [Ref] He married Mercy Parris of Dunstable on 14 December 1687. [2] Mercy was the daugher of Robert and Mary (Crispe) Parris of Dunstable, formerly Groton. [Ref]

Lieutenant Josiah Richardson's gravestone in Chelmsford says that he died on 11 October 1711, age 47 years. [3, 746]

Mercy Parish was born on 5 January 1667/[8?] in Groton. [4, 1:167][Ref] Mercy, the wife of Jonathan Butterfield, Jr., died on 25 April 1743 in Chelmsford. [Ref] She married second Jonathan Butterfield, Jr. [Ref]

Children of Josiah Richardson and Mercy Parish: Births recorded in Chelmsford. [Ref]

i. Mercy Richardson was born on 9 January 168[torn] or 1690. She married Ephraim Hildreth of Dracut about 1707. [2]

ii. Captain Josiah Richardson was born on 5 May 1691. He died after 1773. He married first Lydia Unknown. She died on 28 March 1737. He married second Elizabeth French after 1 April 1738 (int.) [2]

Josiah Richardson, gentleman, signed his will in 1773. [2]

iii. Captain Robert Richardson was born on 2 October 1693. He married Deborah, probably [his first cousin], the daughter of William and Sarah (Richardson) Fletcher. [Ref]

No record has ever been found of Robert or Deborah's deaths. [Ref]

Richard moved to Litchfield, New Hampshire (then Dunstable, Middlesex County, Massachutts) and also known as Brenton's Farms (1728–1733) and Nottingham (1725–1728). [Ref]

Robert was captain of a company of horse shoe men in 1725 in Litchfield, New Hampshire. [2] He was on the first tax list in Nottingham in 1733. [Ref]

iv. Captain Zachariah Richardson was born on 16 February 1695/6. He was buried on 23 March 1776 in Chelmsford. He married Sarah Butterfield.

v. Hannah Richardson was born on 28 September 1698. She either married John Barron of Dracut after 23 April 1721 (int.) in Chelmsford or Jonathan Parkhurst after 7 June 1724 (int.) in Chelmsford. [1, 304]

vi. William Richardson was born on 19 September 170(1?). He died between 1 April 1776, when signed his will, and 7 November 1776 when it was probated. [2] He married Elizabeth Colburn. [2]

William moved to Pelham, New Hampshire.

Endnotes:

1. Vital Records of Chelmsford, Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849 (Salem: Essex Institute, 1914).

2. Walter Goodwin Davis, Massachusetts and Maine Families in the Ancestry of Walter Goodwin Davis, vol. 3 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1996), 226–8.

3. Wilson Waters, History of Chelmsford (Lowell, MA: Courier Citizen Co., 1917).

4. Vital Records of Groton, Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849, 2 vols. (Salem: Essex Institute, 1926, 1927).

Revised 21-May-2022