Joy Homestead

(2)

This town house included an armory to house an artillery company which had been established in 1637, of which Thomas Joy was a member. This building burned in 1711, and on its site, the Old Boston State House was erected. Thomas died in Hingham in 1678 and in his will mentions five of his nine children.


Some of the fruit on family trees is pretty hard to harvest. So far the Joy Family Tree has grown straight and tell and its fruit was easy picking. But then we find branches missing, and unfortunately the branch we find, by record of 1729, is of interest to us, proves to be one of these branches. So it is from the few scattered records and devious deductions that we present this story of Peter Joy and his descendants, the Joy, Peter(4) who married Abial Randall here in Cranston (then Providence) in 1729.


Thomas Joy's children, those whose births have been recorded, where born in Boston and Hingham over a period from 1637 to 1658. No Peter Joy's birth was recorded but in the Essex Probate records of 1677 a ‘Peter Joy', about forty years old is recorded as a witness in a certain probate matter. Subtracting 40 from 1677 this would bring Peter's birth within the year 1637, the same year of Thomas Joy's marriage. Subsequent records show that Thomas was married March and Peter was born in December of that year.


On May 24, 1661 Peter Joy (2) married Sara Gaskin and the birth records of Salem Massachusetts, show that the first of their six children was born there the same year. Twelve years later two of Peter Joy's children, according to Salem records, were voted ‘to be placed out at service." Peter had four children at the time. The two youngest children namesakes of Sara and Peter and who were then seven and four years old respectively, were allowed to remain at home. But things not going well with the family financially apparently, for the town records show that Peter Joy's tax was abated 1684-1690 and in 1691.


What became of little, Peter Joy Jr. or Peter (3) during those lean years is not of record, or at least his record is yet to be located, but he must have grown to manhood and married and had still another son called Peter(4) for on December 23, 1729, son of Peter Joy, Jr., is or record in Providence as having married Abial Randall, daughter of William Randall, Jr., who lived in present, Cranston, Rhode Island where the Cranston Print Works is now located.


Abial's father gave them a piece of land west of his house the following June of 1730. Peter Joy (4) is listed as a house carpenter, so he presumably built a house upon the land and had two sons born there Samuel(5) in 1730 and Job(5) in 1732 (of whom we shall hear more later.) In 1733 he sold his property to his brother-in-law and bought land up in the present Knightsville section, the exact location of which could not be determined by the deed's description. He became a Lieutenant in the Train Band and is known as Lt. Peter(4); he had three more children Peter(5), Sara(5), and Abial(5) and died in May 1745, leaving a fairly comfortable estate to his wife. But Abial Joy had five children to bring up and apparently found it necessary to sell her home, which consisted of 22 acres of land with a stable, dwelling and smith's shop on it. The following January 1746 she too died. Her will shows that of it £330 legacy left her in 1745 only £99 remained.