Joy Homestead

(3)

We do not know who brought up the family of young children for Peter and Abial but it is safe to say that Abial's people, the Randall's took over. They had a tannery as well as a mill on Pocasset River and some of the Randall's were cordwainers. It was doubtless there that young Job Joy(5) learned his trade as shoemaker or cordwainer.

Job Joy(5) married Rachel Westcott. The date was not recorded, But from June 17, 1757 through 1759 a day book of Dr. Charles Higginbortiams showed Job was running an account with him, which would indicate that he was probably married by that time. He made "13 buckskin britches' that came to £30 ‘with the buttons', a jacket for £2 and 4 pairs of other britches at 12 shillings a piece for the doctor to help defray his bill.


Rachel Westcott was the daughter of William Westcott whose farm was on the present Scituate Avenue, west of the present Joy Homestead (which may even have been part of that farm at one time.) Job(5) and Rachel had eleven children, few of whose births are recorded.


We do know that in 1762 he sold a piece of land and a shop(where the deed says he had carried on his trade some years past) to William Randall and in 1763 he was living in a house on a quarter acre owned by Henry Randall which Randall sold the same year to Joseph Dyer.


Of interest to us would be the answer to where did Job Joy go then? Where was the property he owned in 1764 when his taxes were exempted, the record says, "for so long a time as he may remain under low circumstances?" Was it the Joy Homestead and how did he get it and from whom? Was it perhaps from his father-in-law, William Westcott? That link has not been found. But we do know that Job Joy's son Samuel(6) who increased the family's holdings so materially in later years, was born that year, in 1764, was it in the Joy Homestead?


We do know that in 1778 Job Joy(5) brought 20 feet of land from Ezebial and John Warner, near, or on, which, the deed states, his house stood. As later facts seem to show that Job Joy did establish the homestead of 1778 at least and perhaps of 1764.