oseph³ Landers (Thomas^2-1) was born 14 Feb. 1688/9; he died in Sharon, Conn., 5 Aug. 1781 in his 94th year (g.s. Boland District Cemetery; see "Editor’s note", The American Genealogist, 36:11,1, January 1960).

He married 7 Feb. 1710 Deborah³ Dotey "before Mr. Timothy Ruggles, Minister of the Gospel", daughter of Joseph² Dotey by his wife Deborah (Ellis), born in Rochester 31 March 1685; died in Sharon, Conn., 13 Jan. 1781 "in her 97th year" (g.s. Boland District Cemetery; Vital Records of Rochester). We believe her mother was an unrecorded daughter of Lt. John and Elizabeth (Freeman) Ellis (The American Genealogist, 36:11; The Register, 119:173, July 1965). If this identification of Deborah³ Dotey’s mother is correct, as we believe it to be, then Joseph³ Landers and his wife were second cousins, both being grand-grandchildren of Edmond¹ Freeman of Sandwich. Descendants of this couple have a line to Edward Dotey the Mayflower passenger, in any case.

Joseph³ Landers was about eleven years old when his family removed from Sandwich to Rochester. In the first record we find of him he is called "Joseph Landers of Rochester... labourer." This is in a deed, dated 13 Dec. 1718, for land in Rochester which he bought from Isaac Bumpas^A for £4 (Plymouth County Deeds, 17:62). There are many subsequent deeds in his name. One of these, dated 22 Oct. 1723, sets forth that "Thomas Landers of Rochester, yeoman, for £20, and in consideration of the love and affection that I have for my well beloved son Joseph Landers of sd Town, husbandman [conveyed to him] a tract of land swamp and salt marsh, containing part of my homestead I now live upon in Rochester... twenty acres of upland... [and] five acres of meadow" (ibid., 17:63). This land adjoined the property which, a week later, the father gave to the younger son, Benjamin³ Landers, as we have seen. In the same month Thomas Landers conveyed a portion of his estate to his youngest son, Ebenezer³ Landers.

In 1725-1726 Joseph Landers acquired several hundred additional acres of property in the Crawmessett Great Neck area of Rochester and along the eastern bank of the Wawwayentit River (ibid., 21:125; 22:129; 26:153). Having built himself a new "mansion seat" he proceeded to sell to his brother Ebenezer, by deed dated 15 July 1726, the property which had come to him from his father and the first lot which he had bought from Isaac Bumpas. It is interesting that Ebenezer later sold this farm to Silas Bourne of Sandwich, who sold it, in turn, to Melatiah Bourne, the latter then conveying it to Nathan³ Landers, thus bringing the old homestead in a full cycle back into the Landers family.

One wonders what the cousins who remained behind in old England would have said had they been aware that this curious game of musical chairs with real estate could be played by their New England kinsmen!

Between 1732 and 1738 Joseph Landers continued to accumulate Rochester land (ibid., 28:189; 35:43, etc.). In 1739 he was among those who petitioned for permission from the General Court to establish a separate town, and from that year he is called of Wareham in all deeds.

Joseph, Deborah, and Joseph their son were admitted by the Rev. Roland Thatcher to the First Church of Wareham 13 Dec. 1741.

At this point we turn, for a moment, from local records as we believe we have here an example of one of the reasons why genealogy fascinates many people. This Landers family illustrates an American phenomenon which is, indeed, curious. They had worked hard to carve out for themselves a comfortable domain in the former Indian plantation of Scipican, later known as Rochester, yet they were not content with that. In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville observed this characteristic of Americans and, we think, put it very well:

"A native of the United States clings to this world’s goods as if he were never to die and he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach, that one would suppose he was constantly afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications. In the United States a man builds a house in which to spend his old age, and he sells it before the roof is on; he plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing…. He brings a field into tillage and leaves other men to gather the crops; he embraces a profession and gives it up; he settles in a place which he soon leaves, to carry his changeable longings elsewhere… and if, at the end of a year of unremitting labour he finds he has a few days’ vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days to shake off his happiness. Death at last overtakes him, but it is before he is weary of his bootless chase of that complete felicity which forever escapes him" (Democracy in America, 1964 ed., p. 205/6).

Every New England family we have studied furnishes similar examples of this restlessness. In this instance we find a deed, acknowledged by Joseph Landers 5 March 1747 and by his wife Deborah 16 April 1748, whereby Joseph sold to Samuel Swift Jr., of Sandwich, a certain tract of upland, salt meadow and cedar swamp "being at a place called Crawmeesett Great Neck, containing my homestead with my now dwelling house on the same with all other buildings... no less than 126 acres of upland, and one meadow lot [the 14th] and another lot [the 15th] which contains also part of the 16th lot; also salt meadow and ten acres which was part of William Dexter’s share at first; also 57 acres which I bought of John Talor and 20 acres which I bought of Ebenezer Landers and... a certain cedar swamp containing what I bought of Benjamin Norris... and John Benson... Deborah Landers the wife of sd Joseph Landers hereby surrenders all her dower right" (Plymouth County Deeds, 39:136).

Soon after this transaction, Joseph Landers and his wife; their son Joseph Landers, Jr., with his wife; their son-in-law Abel Wood, with his wife, were dismissed, 18 June 1749, by the Wareham Church to the Church of Christ in Sharon, Conn. Also in this party were Joseph’s brothers, Benjamin and Ebenezer Landers, and the latter’s son Thomas Landers. With them went Deborah’s brothers, Ellis, Joseph and John Dotey, with their wives and her sister, Mary (Dotey) with her husband, Samuel Waterman (Wareham Church Records; see also Mrs. Barclay’s account of these Doteys in The American Genealogist, 36:11, January 1960; Donald Lines Jacobus, The Waterman Family, vol. 2, p. 6). Joseph Landers purchased lot #8 in Sharon, Conn., in 1748 (Charles F. Sedgwick, History of Sharon, Litchfield County, Conn. (1842), p. 95-96).

Benjamin³ Landers, in his will, dated 25 Sept. 1760, gives the residue of his estate to his brother, Joseph Landers. We have not found a probate or deed which would show how Joseph’s estate was distributed.

1. It may be of interest to note here that this Isaac³ Bumpus married about 1710 Mary³ Perry, daughter of Ezra² & Rebecca (Freeman) Perry, so he also had Freeman-Perry connections, (see Mrs. Barclay's "The Bumpus Family" in The American Genealogist, 43:212, 1967). The house of Isaac Bumpus was later known as the Fearing Inn at Parker's Mills; in 1959 it became the official home of the Wareham Historical Society.

[Lydia B. (Phinney) Brownson and Maclean W. McLean, "Thomas¹ Landers of Sandwich, Mass.," NEHGR 124:57-59]

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