The New England Meetinghouse was the only municipal building in a town. Both worship and civil meetings were held there. It was customary for men and women to sit separately and the town chose a committee once a year to assign seats according to what was paid, age, and dignity.
Joseph Richards was born in 1703 in Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts. He was the son of Crispus Richards and Sarah Collins.
He married Mary Bowden on May 5, 1726. Mary Bowden (Bouden) was born on July 19, 1705. Her parents were Michael Bowden and Sarah Davis.
Joseph and Mary's children included:
William Richards (1730, married Sarah Bixby and Elizabeth Knapp),
Joseph Richards (1731),
Mary Richards (1733),
Ebenezer Richards (1738),
Martha Richards (1740),
John Richards (1742),
Hannah Richards (1744), and Esther Richards Dwinnell (1744/45).
His son Crispus (?) received a sheep from his grandfather’s will. Esther married Jacob Dwinnell's son, John, who served in Captain Gould's Company in the Revolution.
He died when he was about 45 years old on June 4, 1748 in Southborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts.
In 1754 their daughter, Esther Richards, was brought by her mother, in accordance with her father's wish, to live with his sister and her husband, Aaron and Esther Estey.
English colonists from Salem were the first settlers in Lynn.
Essex County, Massachusetts was created on May 10, 1643 by the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when it ordered "that the whole plantation within this jurisdiction be divided into four sheires."
