Hazard, Josephine

Josephine Hazard (1850-1930)

Nelson, NH

The Hazard family resided in Nelson, NH in the 1860s.  As a teenager in town Josephine Hazard worked as a domestic worker to a private family.  She most likely lived in New Hampshire for a little over a decade before moving back to her birthplace in Massachusetts with her parents and siblings.  The extended family are found to have resided in Worcester & Middlesex Counties, in towns such as Littleton, Shirley, Holliston, and Harvard.

Josephine Hazard was born in 1850 in Littleton, MA, to Tower and Julia A. (Hardy) Hazard.  At the time, her father Tower worked as a general laborer while her mother kept house, caring for Josephine and her elder sister Julietta (1).   As a young child, Josephine lived next door to the local poor farm where three persons of color resided. 

By the time Josephine was about 9 years old, she and her family had relocated to Nelson, New Hampshire. The 1860 census documents their move from Massachusetts. Once settled in the Monadnock region, her father Tower found work as a stone cutter and her mother Julia worked as a housekeeper.  Josephine and her younger siblings, Mary and William, attended school in Nelson.  

Next door to the Hazards, a white homeowner named Luke Richardson was caring for two young boys identified as “mulatto” on the census– John (10) and James (8) Wilson.  The Wilson boys may have attended school with the Hazard children, as they were all the same age.

When Josephine grew older, she found work in Nelson as a housekeeper within the home of William R. Todd.  This job may have been temporary or seasonal; Josephine appears both in the Nelson, NH, census and the Littleton, MA, census in 1870.  In both enumerations, she works as a housekeeper.  While the census in NH identifies her as mulatto, the MA census lists the family’s race as Black.

One year following the census, 21-year old Josephine Hazard married 21-year old Peter Frederick Munroe in Harvard, MA, on July 31, 1871.  Both were listed as mulatto on the marriage certificate.  Within a few years the couple had moved to Groton, MA to start their family.  The 1880 census reveals that their daughter Julia M. Munroe was 6 years old and attending local schools.   Their son William F. Munroe was 3 years old and at home, as was three month old Maud Munroe.

Unfortunately, the Munroe's eldest daughter Julia died of pneumonia at the age of 7 years in 1881.  Following their loss, Josephine and Peter Munroe relocated to Everett, MA and purchased a home at 193 Ferry Street.  By the year 1900, husband Peter Munroe was working as an engineer in a local company and their son William (24) worked as a machinist.  Daughter Alice Maud Munroe (20) was at home with her mother Josephine.

The Munroe family continued to live at 143 Ferry Street in Everett for about 30 years.  Into the 1930s, Josephine continued to work, off and on, as a housekeeper for private families.  Their daughter Alice married and had a child but had become a widow by age 30.  She later remarried  a meat cutter named Richard W. Morgan of Rhode Island in 1871 in Harvard, MA. The couple lived in Everett with her aging parents, Josephine and Peter Munroe. 

Tragedy struck the family in March 1930 when both Josephine (Hazard) Munroe and her daughter Alice (Munroe) Morgan caught pneumonia. After 12 days of sickness, mother and daughter succumbed to the illness, dying approximately three hours apart from each other on March 19, 1930.  Josephine’s husband Peter Munroe continued to live in Everett, MA, into his 80s. He was a member of the James A. Perkins GAR and was “active in patriotic affairs of this city,” according to the Boston Globe.

GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY

JOSEPHINE HAZARD was born in Littleton, MA in 1849 to TOWER HAZARD (1828-1892) and JULIA HARDY (1832-). She married 1st in MA. She married PETER FREDERICK MUNROE in Harvard, MA in 1871. They had:

JULIA MUNROE (1874-1881),

WILLIAM MUNROE (1877-), and

ALICE MAUD MUNROE (1880-1930). Josephine (Hazard) Munroe died in Everett, MA, in March 1930.

SOURCE MATERIALS

Everett, MA, City Directories- 1906- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, Births- 1877- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, Deaths- 1891, 1930, 1914- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Vital Records, Marriages- 1871, 1905- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Census, 1855- Ancestry.com

Massachusetts Wills and Probate, 1890- Ancestry.com

U.S. Federal Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930- Ancestry.com