I'm afraid that this is all that I got on Josph (General Israel Putnam's Father) I got bits and pieces from several sources "The Salem Witch Trials Reader", "The Devil in Massachusetts", and several articles on the "Salem Witch trials" and books on his son, General Isreal Putnam.

He became famous for his opposition to the Witch trials.
Bequeathed his father's house which had been built in 1648 at the foot of Hathorne Hill. He brought his bride here in 1690. Two years later, when the witchcraft delusion was at its height, Joseph did everything to show his disapproval of the course which the Rev. Samuel Parris and the principal men in Salem Village were pursuing. This house has been inherited successively by descendants of Thomas Putnam. In 1897, "The Israel Putnam Chapter" of the D.A.R. place a bronze tablet upon the house to mark it as the birthplace of Israel Putnam.

In the excitement of the time, no ties of kinship or religion could protect a person who had censured his pastor and had dared to sympathize with persons accused or condemned as witches. Not only was disfavour expressed towards Joseph by his half-brothers, Sgt. Thomas Putnam and Deacon Edward Putnam, but the bitterness of feeling, the rancour, the horror, of the superstitious folk vented itself upon him so that his life was imperilled. For six months, until the witchcraft days were ended, he kept his firelock loaded and within ready reach and his swiftest horse always saddled in the stable, in order to defend himself and escape at a moment's warning, if his enemies, some of them his own relatives, attempted to arrest him.

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.

Joseph Putnam's will was dated March 15, 1722-3.