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Joseph Edgerton, son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Haskins) Edgerton.

Lucy Lyon, daughter of Ebenezer and Abigail (Gay) Lyon.

Children:

1. Darius, b. December 13, 1762; Norwich, New London Co., CT.
2. Oliver, b. June 14, 1765; Norwich, New London Co., CT.
3. Anne, b. March 2, 1768; Norwich, New London Co., CT.
4. Joseph, b. October 29, 1770; Norwich, New London Co., CT.
5. Ezekiel, b. October 30, 1773; Norwich, New London Co., CT.
6. Asa, b. ~1777; Norwich, New London Co., CT.
7. Lucy, b. ~1780; Hawley, Franklin Co., MA.

Joseph Edgerton Jr. was born at Norwich, Connecticut on November 18, 1738, the third son and sixth child of Capt. Joseph and Elizabeth (Haskins) Edgerton.  He was baptized at the First Congregational Church of Norwich on November 26, 1738.

Joseph was a farmer and planter.  He resided in the western district of Norwich, which was later to become the township of Bozrah.  Joseph was married in Norwich in February of 1762 to Lucy Lyon, daughter of Ebenezer and Abigail (Gay) Lyon, who had come to Norwich from Rehoboth, Massachusetts.  The Norwich Vital Records list a marriage date of February 4th, while the Bozrah Congregational Church records the date as February 11th.  Joseph and Lucy had a family of seven children, the first five of whom were recorded in the vital records of Norwich (VRp I:394).

Joseph and Lucy were members of the Congregational Church at Bozrah, where their marriage took place.  They owned the covenant of the Bozrah Church on October 7, 1764  (ChR 3:45); and their eldest son, Darius, was baptized there on the same date (ChR 3:10).  Each of the other children, excepting the youngest daughter Lucy, were later baptized at the Bozrah Church.  Joseph’s brothers, Simeon and William, were also affiliated with the Bozrah Church.

In 1773, Joseph and his elder brother, Simeon, acted as co-executors on the estate of their bachelor uncle, Jacob Edgerton.  According to Jacob’s will, Joseph and his younger brother, William, inherited the bulk of Jacob’s lands in Bozrah, upon which they were to provide a support for their mother, Elizabeth, and maiden aunt, Ann.

In 1776, Joseph Edgerton enlisted at Norwich in Capt. Joshua Huntington’s Company of the Connecticut militia.  The duration of his Revolutionary service has not been ascertained.

Circa 1778, Joseph removed from Norwich and settled with his family in Hawley, Franklin County, Massachusetts (originally known as “Plantation Number Seven”).  Joseph first referred to himself as “of Number Seven in the State of Massachusetts” in a Norwich deed (LR 20:248) dated June 11, 1779, in which he and his wife, Lucy, transferred certain of his Norwich property to her “kinsman” Asa Lothrop.

Joseph and Lucy settled in the district of Hawley called Bozrah, presumably named after the section of Norwich from which Joseph and many of the other settlers had migrated from.

The household of Joseph Edgerton was listed in the 1790 Federal Census of “Plantation Number Seven”, Franklin County (then Hampshire County), Massachusetts (pg. 453), with the following enumeration:

3 males “of 16 years or upward”  (Joseph, and sons Joseph Jr. and Ezekiel);

1 male “under 16 years”  (son Asa); and,

3 females  (wife Lucy, and daughters Anne and Lucy).

Joseph’s eldest son, Darius, was already on his own at the time of this census; he was listed separately as a head of household in neighboring Charlemont, Massachusetts.

The household of Joseph Edgerton was recorded in the 1800 Federal Census of Hawley, Franklin County (then Hampshire County), Massachusetts (pg. 478), with the following enumeration:

1 male “over 45 years of age”  (Joseph);

1 male “of 26 and under 45”  (son Ezekiel);

2 males “of 16 and under 26”  (son Asa and ?);

1 female “over 45 years of age”  (wife Lucy); and,

1 female “of 16 and under 26”  (? – possibly daughter-in-law, Lucy, wife of Ezekiel).

Joseph’s second son, Oliver, was also listed as a head of household in the 1810 Federal Census of Hawley.  Two other sons – Darius and Joseph – were recorded in Charlemont, Massachusetts, where their surname was written, “Adjatent”.

History of the town of Hawley, Franklin County, Massachusetts (Louise Hale Johnson; Mystic, Conn.: Charter Oak House; 1953) provides the following biographical excerpt regarding Joseph Edgerton:

“Joseph and Lucy Edgerton came with their family of six children to Hawley, Massachusetts in 1775, being one of the earliest families to settle in this town.  He settled with four other families in what is known as "Bozrah" in Hawley, on a farm later occupied by Erastus Brayman.”

A similar excerpt is found in William Giles Atkins earlier history of the township (History of the town of Hawley, Franklin County, Massachusetts; West Cummington, Mass.: privately publihsed; 1887).

Joseph Edgerton died at Hawley, Massachusetts on April 19, 1809.  His wife, Lucy, survived him thirteen more years, dying at Hawley on May 23, 1823.  Joseph and Lucy were buried at the Bozrah Cemetery in Hawley.  Their gravestones bear the following inscriptions:

Many of Joseph and Lucy’s children lived in Franklin County, Massachusetts – in Hawley and the nearby towns of Charlemont and Colrain – where they raised large families.  Some later removed west to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where numerous descendants are found throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Original Source Documents:

1790 Federal Census – household of Joseph Edgerton; “Plantation Number Seven”, Franklin (then Hampshire) Co., MA.

1800 Federal Census – household of Joseph Edgerton; Hawley, Franklin (then Hampshire) Co., MA.

Gravestone photo – Joseph Edgerton; Bozrah Cemetery; Hawley, Franklin Co., MA – photo courtesy of Mark Fairbrother.

Gravestone photo – Mrs. Lucy (Lyon) Edgerton; Bozrah Cemetery; Hawley, Franklin Co., MA – photo courtesy of Mark Fairbrother.

For the ancestry of Lucy (Lyon) Edgerton, consult:

• Dumas, David W.; “Ebenezer Lyon of Rehoboth and Norwich”, The American Genealogist, 1976, Vol. 52, pp. 151-153. 
• Anderson, Robert C.; “Abigail, wife of Samuel Gay…”, The Genealogist, 1980, Vol. 1, p. 72.