Joseph Kingsbury (1600–1676) was an early settler and selectman from

Dedham, Massachusetts Dedham ( ) is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 25,364 at the 2020 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest b ...

Personal life

Kingsbury was born in

Boxford, Suffolk Boxford is a large village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. Located around six miles east of Sudbury straddling the River Box and skirted by the Holbrook, in 2005 the parish had a population of 1,270. decreasing to 1, ...

to John Kingsbury. He traveled to Massachusetts in the early 1630s with his younger brother,

John Kingsbury John Kingsbury (died September 12, 1660) was an early resident of Watertown, Massachusetts and a founder of Dedham, Massachusetts. He represented Dedham in the Great and General Court in 1647. Public service Kingsbury was admitted as a freeman in ...

, and his wife Millicent, whom he married in Boxford in 1628. He had a daughter, Sarah, born in 1635. Their second daughter, Mary, was the second child ever born in Dedham on September 1, 1637. Their third child, Elizabeth, was born in 1638. Four boys then followed, including Joseph, born 1640, John, born in 1643, Eleazer, born in 1645, and Nathaniel, born in 1650.

Dedham

Kingsbury was one of the ten men who were selected to seek out the "living stones" upon which

First Church and Parish in Dedham First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

would be founded. He was found to be "stiff" and "too much addicted to the world," however, and was not selected to be a founding member in 1638. He was later admitted in 1641. Some sources suggest he was displeased with the church after giving the church a valuable plot of land and receiving swamp land in return. The first portion of the

Old Village Cemetery The Old Village Cemetery is an historic cemetery in Dedham, Massachusetts. History The first portion of the cemetery was set apart at the first recorded meeting of the settlers of Dedham on August 18, 1636, with land taken from Nicholas Phillips a ...

was set apart at the first recorded meeting of the settlers of Dedham on August 18, 1636, with land taken from Kingsbury and Nicholas Phillips. He signed the

Dedham Covenant The Dedham Covenant was a covenant that governed the early settlement of Dedham, Massachusetts. It mandated that only those with similar, Puritan, community values could live in the town and set about a method for mediating disputes. It also requi ...

. He died in 1676.

References

Works cited

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kingsbury, Joseph Dedham, Massachusetts selectmen Signers of the Dedham Covenant 1600 births 1676 deaths People from Boxford, Suffolk English emigrants to the United States