Holbrook line: Josiah Belcher 1631-1683

I recently wrote about an ancestor from early Boston, and now here is another one, even earlier.  And wonder of wonders, there is quite a bit of information about him.  It's always fun when that happens.  I want to acknowledge that a good bit of this seems to have originated with a wonderful source called The Thweng Collection, which is available on the site American Ancestors (this is a subscription site, but with as many New England families as we have, I can't do without it).

So...Josiah Belcher was the son of Gregory and (probably) Catherine Alcock Belcher and was born in 1631 (based on a gravestone inscription) in a small settlement, not yet an organized town, called Braintree, Massachusetts Bay Colony.  He was one of at least seven children, and would have grown up basically as a farmer.  Or perhaps not, because he had a trade as an adult, that of a wheelwright.  He is still described as a yeoman, so there was farming involved, also.

Josiah (also known as Josias) married Uranis (Ranis) Rainsford, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Dilloe Rainsford, on March 3, 1655 in Boston, where her parents lived.  Braintree wasn't far from Boston, but it seems likely that Josiah had already settled in Boston, in order for them to have met.  Edward Rainsford is a gateway ancestor, connecting this family to European royalty (whether they knew it or not).  Rainsford was sometimes called "Mr." or "Gent" so this may be a case of Josiah being upwardly mobile.  One wonders what her parents thought of the match.

His property is described as being on the southwesterly corner of what is now Essex Street and Harrison Streets (this from a 1906 articles about the Belchers in the Register.  It fronted 126 feet on Essex Street and ran back 285 feet to the water.  I think this is very near what is identified as "Rainsford Lane" on the 1722 Boston map.  This was what was then the south part of Boston.  In fact, Josiah was one of about two dozen men given the task of founding the South church in Boston (this was the one that in later years would become a meeting place for Patriots, but that's part of someone else's story).

Josiah doesn't appear to have been much involved with politics or civic service, but he did serve as one of the "officers about swine" three times during the 1670s.  Typically this would involve making sure that the animals were ringed or yoked during certain times of the year, so they wouldn't destroy crops.  The Massachusetts towns I've read about during this time period all allowed swine to roam the town streets, and perhaps Boston did, too. 

Josiah and Uranis had thirteen children together.  Several died young, never married, or married but had no children.  The last years of Josiah and Uranis were probably sad, but they did have two sons who survived them and several daughters.  The land was not partitioned until after the death of Uranis, and then each surviving child received part of the land, which appears to have been then sold.  The inventory for Josiah includes land in Braintree but the land in Boston doesn't appear to be included.  As part of it may have been Uranis's land, perhaps it was not included in the inventory.  The inventory was valued at a little over 195 pounds.     Josiah is buried at the Granary Burying Ground in downtown Boston.  (I was on a trolley tour of Boston 21 years ago, and we stopped at this site, but I had no knowledge that I had ancestors there and did not get off the trolley to go exploring). 

Of course I'd like to know more about Josiah, including how it was that he became a wheelwright and how he met and courted his wife.  What made him (or his father) decide that Boston would be a better place for him than Braintree?  I'd also like to know if he was ever involved in military service. and was perhaps a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.  That discovery, however, will have to wait for another day.

The line of descent is:

Josiah Belcher-Uranis Rainsford
Elizabeth Belcher-John Paine
Stephen Paine-Sarah Vallet
Stephen Paine-Sarah Thornton
Stephen Paine-Lillis Winsor
Deborah Paine-Enos Eddy
Joseph Eddy-Susan Lamphire
Susan Eddy-Hiram Stanard
Louis E Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick
Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants