Early Life and Career
Artemas was born at Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, in 1727 to Nahum (1684–1754) and Martha (Howe) Ward. He was the sixth of seven children. His father had broad and successful career interests as a sea captain, merchant, land developer, farmer, lawyer and jurist. As a child he attended the common schools and shared a tutor with his brothers and sisters. He graduated from Harvard in 1748 and taught there briefly.
On July 31, 1750, he married Sarah Trowbridge (December 3, 1724 – December 13, 1788), the daughter of Reverend Caleb Trowbridge and Hannah Trowbridge of Groton, Massachusetts. The young couple returned to Shrewsbury where Artemas opened a general store. In the next fifteen years they would have eight children: Ithamar in 1752, Nahum (1754), Sara (1756), Thomas (1758), Artemas Jr. (1762), Henry Dana (1768), Martha (1760) and Maria (1764).
The next year, 1751, he was named a township assessor for Worcester County. This was the first of many public offices he was to fill. Artemas was elected a justice of the peace in 1752 and also served the first of his many terms in the Massachusetts Bay Colony's assembly, or "general court."
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