Brief History of Joseph Fairbanks 1778-1847
Written by a great, great, granddaughter, Kathryn Fairbanks Kirk.
Joseph Fairbanks was born in Templeton, Massachusetts on 15 Oc. 1778. He was the only son of Joseph Fairbanks and Asenath Osgood Fairbanks, although they had five daughters. His father was a Revolutionary soldier, having enlisted when he was fifteen years of age. He was also a Minuteman who answered the Lexington alarm in 1775 and the Bennington alarm in 1777.
Joseph married Mary (Polly) Brooks on 3 Oct. 1803 in Princeton, Worcester, Massachusetts, or Peru, Bennington, Vermont. Their marriage was the uniting of two fine old New England families. To this couple, thirteen children were born, nine sons and four daughters.
Shortly after their marriage, they took up residence in Peru, Bennington, Vermont, where seven of their children were born. Next they moved to Sandy Hill, Warren County, New York, where five more children were born. In the spring of 1826 they moved to Rockaway, Morris County, New Jersey. Here their youngest child, was born. They left there in 1830 and moved to Meads Basin, now known as Mountain View, Bergen County, New Jersey.
Joseph, by trade, was a stonemason and contractor. He contracted New Jersey’s Morris Canal which is still in use.
In the summer of 1844, Joseph, his wife and five of their children, David, John Boylston, Harriet, Nathaniel and Henry, having embraced Mormonism prior to that time, journeyed by team to Nauvoo, Illinois, which was the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because of mob violence and persecution, they left Nauvoo on 25 April, 1846. They journeyed westward, camping for the winter at Winter Quarters, which was located on the Missouri River six miles north of Omaha, Nebraska, the present site of Florence. Because of the severity of the winter, Joseph Fairbanks died on 28 Feb. 1847 and was buried at Winter Quarters. After his death, his widow continued on to Utah with their children. Joseph and Polly’s children who remained in the East never joined the Mormon Church.
1778 - 1847 (68 år)
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