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Ezekiel RICHARDSON (d. date unknown)
Notes for Ezekiel RICHARDSON:
Ezekiel Richardson, it is very certain, came over in 1630, in the fleet with Winthrop. He was followed by his brothers, Samuel and Thomas, in 1636.
Soon after his arrival in this country, he and his wife took up their abode in Charlestown, and must have shared in the hardships and privations endured by the early settlers. They lived in a log-house, hastily and rudely constructed, the interstices filled with mud, and utterly insufficient for their protection against the rude blasts of winter. All around was a dense forest, or a dreary waste, infested with wolves and other ferocious animals. They probably lived in constant fear and alarm. During the first two years, the colonists suffered greatly from famine. Shell-fish, clams, lobsters, etc., had to serve for meat; ground-nuts and acorns for bread. The relief expected from England did not come; bread-stuffs were scarce and dear there, and the colonists had no money to buy with. The salaries of their ministers were paid in pork, barley, and other articles of food, of which the people had not sufficient for themselves. The harvest of the year after their arrival was scanty, by reason of cold and wet weather through the summer. But these sufferings were patiently borne.
Ezekiel Richardson was a man of great respectability and worth. His name often occurs on the Charlestown records. He was, in 1633, appointed by the General Court a constable, then an office of much responsibility. In the following years, he was appointed by the town on several important committees. He was one of the first board of selectmen in Charlestown, chosen Feb. 10, 1634-5; also in 1637, 1638, 1639. He was a deputy or representative of that town in the General Court, chosen Sept. 2, 1634, and also the following year, 1635. In 1637, a lot of land was granted to him on "Misticke Side," or Malden; also to each of his brothers, of whom more in the sequel.
He was a follower of Ann Hutchinson and John Wheelwright in the Antinomian Controversy of 1637, as were most of the members of the Boston church, and was one of the eighty or more persons who signed the Remonstrance in Mr. Wheelwright's favor, presented to the General Court on the ninth of March in that year.(*) At the session of the General Court held in November following, he and several others desired that their names might be erased from that paper, which the Court had judged to be of seditious tendency. Thus acknowledging his fault, he was exempted from the censure inflicted by the Court; in other words, he was not disarmed, as were nearly all of the Remonstrants. It is creditable to his memory that he was willing to abandon an enterprise in which he had conscientiously, but unwisely, embarked.
In May, 1640, the town of Charlestown petitioned the General Court for an enlargement of her territory. The petition was
granted, and addition made to her territory of two miles square, soon after increased to four miles square. On the 15th of May, Ezekiel Richardson, Edward Johnson, Edward Convers, and some others were sent to explore this grant and to determine its bounds. The original design was to make a village within the bounds of Charlestown and dependent on it. But as early as the 5th of November, 1640, the church of Charlestown chose seven men, Edward Convers, Edward Johnson, Ezekiel Richardson, John Mousall, Thomas Graves, Samuel Richardson, and Thomas Richardson, as commissioners or agents, for the erection of a new church and town, upon the land thus granted, to be entirely distinct and separate from Charlestown. A beginning was made in the erection of houses--log-houses, doubtless--during the year 1641, at and near the centre of the new town, which at its incorporation, in September, 1642, received the name of WOBURN, from Woburn in Herefordshire, England, where was an ancient abbey, founded in 1145, and where was the palatial residence of the noble family of Russells, dukes of Bedford, long known as the friends of liberty.(*)
The church in Woburn was solemnly constituted Aug. 14, 1642, O. S., answering to Aug. 24, N. S. Seven persons were embodied in a church state, viz.: John Mousall, Edward Convers, Edward Johnson, William Learned, Ezekiel Richardson, Samuel Richardson, and Thomas Richardson. These persons stood forth, one by one, and declared their religions faith and christian experience. These seven men were the "seven pillars," Prov. ix. 1; they were the nucleus of the new church, and theirs was the responsible duty of deciding what other members should be admitted. It was also their duty to lay out the new town to be formed in connection with this church, and make all needful arrangements for this purpose.(+) The fact that the three Richardson brothers were appointed on so important a service is conclusive proof of their general excellence of character and of the confidence reposed in their wisdom and integrity.
The first settlers of Woburn, 1642, could not have exceeded thirty heads of families. Thirty-two men subscribed the "Town Orders," agreed on by the commissioners at their first meeting, in Charlestown, for the settlement of Woburn, Dec. 18, 1640; but several more became inhabitants of the new town.
Ezekiel Richardson and his two brothers??, after their removal to Woburn, lived near each other, on the same street, which, from its having been their residence and that of many of their posterity, as been known from time immemorial as "Richardson's Row." It was in the present town of Winchester, a little north and east of the village; the "Row" now constituting a part of Washington Street. He himself lived half a mile north of the present village of Winchester; a locality, until April 30, 1850, included in the town of Woburn. The descendants of these three brothers, bearing the name of RICHARDSON, long have been and still are more numerous than persons of any other name in Woburn, and among them have been found some of the most useful and valued members of the church and citizens of the place. [Statement of Rev. Samuel Sewall, of Burlington, in his History of Woburn, p. 71.]
At the first election of town officers in Woburn, April 13, 1644, Ezekiel Richardson was chosen a selectman, and continued to be chosen to that responsible office in 1645, 1646, and 1647. Edward Convers,(*) John Mousall--these were deacons of the church till their death--and Ezekiel Richardson were appointed "to end small causes under twenty shillings," at Woburn;(+) and so continued till death.
Edward Convers, Ezekiel Richardson, Capt. Cooke, and Edward Goffe, with Mr. Stileman, were appointed a committee to lay out a road from Cambridge to Woburn.
Ezekiel Richardson, one of the founders of Woburn, died in that town Oct. 21, 1647. From the fact that all his children were at this time under the age of twenty-one, it is inferred that his age at his decease did not exceed forty-five.
His will is dated 20th day of the fifth month, 1647; equivalent to July 20, 1647. It was proved June 1, 1648, and is on file in the Suffolk Probate Office, Boston.
After the death of Ezekiel Richardson, his widow Susanna married Henry Brooks; of Woburn, as we learn from sundry conveyances of land. For instance: Susanna Richardson (now Brooks), widow of Ezekiel Richardson, quitclaimed, March 23, 1655, thirty-five acres of land in Charlestown to Thomas Moulton and John Greenland. [Midd. Deeds, ii. 36.]
More About Ezekiel RICHARDSON:
Notes (Facts Pg): See Notes.
More About Ezekiel RICHARDSON and Susannah BRADFORD:
Marriage: 1631, Woburn, Mass..
Children of Ezekiel RICHARDSON and Susannah BRADFORD are:
- +Esther RICHARDSON, b. Abt. 1645, d. May 16, 1736, Hampton, N.H..