| 834Josiah Barker, the sixth child of Noah Barker (3), was born in Stratham, March 30, 1727. When a boy he went to Ipswich to learn the trade of clothier. He married there in March, 1746, Mary Heard, born March, 1725, a daughter of Daniel (a deacon of the first church) and Mary (Baker) Heard, of Ipswich. He moved to Exeter, New Hampshire, early in 1848, purchasing land there, and for more than forty years carried on his trade and operated the fulling mill which was given to him by his father's will, jointly with his brother Benjamin, who was also a clothier. His account books still preserved contain the autographs of nearly all the men prominent at the time in that vicinity, annexed to memoranda of settlements of their accounts. He died in 1808. Influenced by the preaching of Whitefield, he joined in the movement for a second parish in the town of Exeter, and was active in the long struggle which resulted in 1755 in a grant from the provincial assembly establishing the new parish. He signed in 1776 the complaint against Maj. Daniel Tilton for refusing to sell goods, and was on the committee to enforce the non-importation agreement appointed December 28, 1774. He served in the revolution in 1777, in Capt. Weare's company of Col. Scammell's regiment (the third New Hampshire). The children of Josiah and Mary were: 1. Mary, married first, (???) Weeks, second (???) Kimball. 2. Lydia, married Gilman Leavitt, of Brentwood, New Hampshire. 3. Tamosin, born August, 1753, married Jonathan Norris, of Waterford, New Hampshire. 4. Daniel, born April 22, 1754, married Anna Hill. He was one of the men from Exeter who went to Cambridge on the first call, April 20, 1775, and remaining there when others returned, he was one of several Exeter men who joined Capt. Isaac Sherman's company in Baldwin's (Mass.) regiment, September 26, 1775. He was a member of Capt. Daniel Gordon's company in Col. Thomas Task's regiment, being one of the two authorized in September, 1776, to reinforce the army in New York. After the close of the war he removed to Limerick, Maine, and in March, 1805, became one of the first settlers of the township which is now Exeter, Maine. 5. Josiah who went into the army in 1777, and died in the service when about twenty years of age. 6. John, died young. 7. Nathaniel, who went to Limerick, Maine, and later settled upon land owned by his father in Cornish, Maine (then in Massachusetts), and died there in 1844. 8. Noah, mentioned below. 9. Ezra, who also went to Limerick, and later to Cornish, Maine. |