Joseph Putnam1

b. 14 September 1669, d. 1724/25
Joseph Putnam|b. 14 Sep 1669\nd. 1724/25|p9918.htm|Lieutenant Thomas Putnam|b. 7 Mar 1614/15\nd. 5 May 1686|p1450.htm|Mary Veren|d. Mar 1694/95|p9909.htm|John Putnam|b. 17 Jan 1579/80\nd. 30 Dec 1662|p9900.htm|Priscilla (—?—) (Putnam)||p9901.htm|||||||

1st cousin 8 times removed of Ruth Minerva Fairfield.
1st cousin 10 times removed of Laura Jane Munson.
Family Background:
Fairfield and Allied Families
     Joseph Putnam was born on 14 September 1669 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts.1 He was the son of Lieutenant Thomas Putnam and Mary Veren.1 He was baptized on 4 September 1670 in First Church, Salem.1 He married Elizabeth Porter, daughter of Israel Porter and Elizabeth Hathorne, on 21 April 1690 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts.2 He died in 1724/25 in Salem Village.2
     
     The following is quoted from A History of the Putnam Family:
     Joseph Putnam will always be remembered for his opposition to Mr. Parris and the witchcraft trials. The position which he took could only have been maintained by one who, like himself, was allied with the principal families of the county. He opposed from first to last the proceedings which disgraced Danvers and his immediate relatives and friends. This was a source of peril to even him, however, and for six months, one of his fleetest horses was kept saddled, ready at a moment's notice, should an attempt be made to seize his person. This fact was well known and it was also known that he would resist every attempt of that nature, even though it cost the lives of those who came to take him. It is a significant fact that his children were baptized in Salem, this being a very public manner of showing his disapprobation of the course followed by Mr. Parris. Joseph Putnam should be honored far above all others of his generation; for he showed that not only did he have the courage common to all of the family, but was above the ignorant superstition of the time by which such men as Judge Samuel Sewall and Cotton Mather were overcome.3

Citations

  1. [S901] Eben Putnam, A History of the Putnam Family in England and America, Volume I, Recording the Ancestry and Descendants of John Putnam of Danvers, Mass., Jan Poutman of Albany, N.Y., Thomas Putnam of Hartford, Conn. (Salem: The Salem Press, 1891), 8.
  2. [S901] Eben Putnam, Putnam Genealogy, 49.
  3. [S901] Eben Putnam, Putnam Genealogy, 51.