On 15 May 1754 when Kezia was 35, she second married
Ebenezer Richardson (43351) , son of
Timothy Richardson (41985) (24 Jul 1687-29 Jun 1735) &
Abigail Johnson (23561) (ca 1697-Jan 1771), in Boston, MA.
Born on 31 Mar 1718 in Woburn, MA.124
Ebenezer first married Rebecca Richardson, second Rebecca’s sister Kezia (Richardson) Henshaw, widow of Thomas Henshaw.
From The Richardson Memorial, pages 242–244:279
That Ebenezer Richardson married this Rebecca Fowle, daugher of John and Elizabeth (Prescott) Fowle, of Woburn, though much older than himself, is rendered certain by a law-suit. (See court files.) She died about 1783. [?]
On the twenty-second day of February, 1770, this man, then residing in Boston, made himself unpleasantly notorious. The British Parliament, in June, 1767, passed an act imposing duties
on glass, paper, painters’ colors, and tea, imported into the colonies. As Englishmen in England paid no duty on these articles, it was thought that Englishmen in America were entitled to the same privilege. The act being therefore regarded as a direct invasion of the liberties of the colonies, the merchants of Boston, in the October following, entered into an agreement not to import or sell any of the above-named articles. In this measure they were sustained by the citizens of Boston in town-meeting assembled. The movement had the sympathy and encouragement of the province in general, and of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, and the other colonies. They also had encouragement and sympathy from several of the leading statesmen in England.
A strict adherence to the non-importation agreement was considered essential to the liberties of America ; but there were four merchants of Boston, who, after entering into it, determined no longer to abide by it. For this conduct, they were, at a town-meeting held October, 1769, by name declared enemies to their country, and as deserving to be treated as such. Their names are still on the Boston records as infamous. Thus they found themselves exposed, in no ordinary degree, to the public scorn. Even the boys in the streets, as they passed their doors, pointed at them with words of contempt. Their names were John Bernard, Theophilus Lillie, John Mein, James McMasters & Co. I regret to say two women, Anne and Elizabeth Cummings, were involved in the same infamy. John Bernard was a son of Francis Bernard, the late governor. Thomas and Elisha Hutchinson, sons of the lieutenant governor, were also of the number. To give the greater effect to this proscription, posts were by the boys planted before their doors, with a hand affixed pointing at them in derision.
One of these men, Theophilus Lillie, having been thus assailed, Ebenezer Richardson, a neighbor and confederate of his, endeavored to persuade a teamster, who was passings to drive his cart against the post to break it down; the teamster refused. A crowd soon gathered; the boys chased Richardson to his house — it was at the north end of Boston, not fjir off^ bricks and stones were thrown at the windows. Richardson, provoked, fired at random into the crowd of boys, dangerously wounding one of them, Samuel Gore, and mortally wounding another, Christopher Schneider, a poor German boy, eleven or twelve years of age, who died the next morning. This was on Feb. 22, 1770.
The excitement was intense. The funeral of the boy was attended by “all the friends of liberty;” the coffin was covered with appropriate inscriptions; five hundred children, in couples, walked in front of the bier; six of the boy’s playmates held thepall; his relatives followed; after them came thirteen hundred inhabitants on foot; chaises and chariots closed the procession. Boston seldom, if ever, witnessed a more impressive spectacle. The first blood had been shed; the first martyr to libeity had fallen. Thoughtful persons asked, “Where will this end?”
The affray at John Gray’s ropewalk, March 2d, on Atkinson Street, soon followed, and the “Boston Massacre,” March 5, 1770, soon added to the general excitement, and prepared the people for a forcible and bloody resistance of the wrongs they were suffering.
Richardson, on the 20th of April following, was tried on a charge of murder. A verdict of guilty was rendered. It was murder and nothing else. Richardson, though provoked, was not at all endangered. The chief justice, Thomas Hutchinson, refused to pronounce sentence, being strongly committed to the oppressive measures of the British ministry. Richardson, after lying in prison two years, was, on application to the king, pardoned and set at liberty.
To reward Richardson for the service he had thus rendered to the minions of arbitrary power, one of the ships from London brought to him in April, 1773, an appointment as an officer of the customs in Philadelphia.
Richardson’s business in Boston, at least a part of it, was to give information to the board of customs, of merchants or others who imported or sold articles on which duties had been imposed by Act of Parliament. Consequently he and his like were extremely obnoxious to the people. It was therefore prudent for him, after his release from prison, to get out of the way as soon as possible ; for there was an intention to give him a coat of tar and feathers. Happily his case, so far as I know, is wholly singular in the Richardson family.