Joy Homestead

(4)

In 1776 Job Joy (5) family had been exposed to small pox, then raging in epidemic proportions and he and his household were ordered by the town fathers to be visited every day to see that they did not develop and symptoms of the dread disease. No record of quarantine or care followed, so the family seems to have escaped that danger, but his son Peter(6) who was old enough to be drafted in 1777 was adjudged unfit for duty in the Alarm Company of Cranston at that time and a year later in 1778 he had his brother William(6) were adjudged unable to provide themselves with firearms as required by law. This raises the question of how Job(5) could have built so substantial a house at the Homestead under these financial conditions These records give no answer. But all of this is evidence of the early struggles two different generations of Joys were making here in Cranston.


In 1785 Job Joy(5), a man in his fifties(53) deeded his sons, Samuel (6) and Peter (6), both cordwainers like their father, one half of the land he owned in Cranston with one half his dwelling and one half his shoemaker's shop, both therein standing and the property bounded north on the highway. This would seem to be the Homestead piece. Four years later in 1789 he deeded Peter(6) the remaining half.


This would indicate his failing breath, presumably, but just when Job Joy(5) died is not recorded on the stone which marked his grave in the hill cemetery which he had established on his land.


Peter Joy (6), son of Job(5), married Phebe Hackstone some time after acquiring her father's estate and their son, still another Peter(7), was born there around 1793. When this Peter(7) was four years old his father Peter(6), died and the inventory of his estate amounted to 204. In 1801 the widow remarried and Elisha Baker, of Searle's Corner (Oak Lawn), her second husband, became guardian of young Peter (7) who had inherited his father's share of the Joy Homestead. He released it to his Uncle Samuel(6) when he came of age in 1814.


Samuel Joy(6) son of Job(5) was twenty-one years old in 1785 when his father deeded ½ the Homestead property and shop to him and his brother Peter(6). The boys paid their father $56 for it at that time. Samuel married Freelove Fenner daughter of Samuel Fenner (Maj. Daniel,Thomas, Major Thomas, Capt Arthur) who lived on Plainfield Pike in the Thornton district (which was once called Fenner Place.) Like the other Joys he was careless about recording the vital statistics which we should so gladly know now, but on October 5, 1792 an event took place which Samuel did put down in black and white, Freelove presented the family with twins, George(7) and Amey(7).


Twenty-four years later in 1816 George Joy(7) became Captain George Joy, Captain in the 1st Cranston Company Militia. He died in 1829 and was buried in the newer of the two cemeteries on the farm, which lies a short distance east of the house and was established apparently by Samuel Joy(6) for the later members of the family.