Josiah Converse

Grandfather of Col. Israel Converse (on the one doubt, see the open questions on Lt. Josiah Converse’s page). The youngest surviving son of Maj. James Converse of Woburn, he married Hannah, daughter of Joshua and Sarah Sawyer, at Woburn in December 1706; her sister Abigail had married his brother John in 1699, and a Mary Sawyer, probably another sister, his brother Robert in 1698 (source). The town recorded their children: Hannah (25 Oct 1707), Josiah (2 Mar 1710), Patience (1712), Ruth (1714), Dorothy (1717), Jesse (1720), Jude (1723) and James (2 Sept 1725); Kith and Kin adds Sarah (b. 5 Nov 1729). Their son James became Col. James Converse of Brookfield, colonel of the Fourth Worcester County Regiment in the Revolution (source). Their descendant Ella (Chapin) Browne wrote in 1903 that “He had eight children born in Woburn and one daughter Sarah born in Leicester, Mass. where he removed about 1727. He afterward removed to Brookfield, Mass. where his wife Hannah died June 18, 1747” (source). The Josiah Converse who was “a leading man in Leicester” in 1733, chosen moderator, first selectman, town clerk, treasurer and assessor, and in May representative to the General Court, is called his son in the Richardson Memorial, but was more likely this Josiah, then forty-eight (source). He died in 1771, by WikiTree’s account at Brookfield.

Kith and Kin calls him Capt. Josiah Converse. The Woburn records’ “Capt. Josiah,” who died on 15 July 1717 aged 58, was his cousin, the son of Deacon Josiah; Savage runs the two together and gives this Josiah’s children by Hannah to the elder man, whose wife Ruth Marshall outlived him (source).

Research: research/hatten/Browne_Chapin_Cumins.md.