Joshua Lloyd was born about 1787. According to the 1880 census records,323 his parents were of English origin. He had a very long and stable life, surviving to the age of 94. He married and had many children during the first decades of the 19th century.The family stuck together, often with two or three generations in the same household or adjoining. Children disappear for a while in the census records, and then come back.

His first documented census appearance was in Northern Liberties in 1820,324 close to where Thomas Lloyd was. In the Philadelphia Directory and censuses from 1825 through 1870,314 he is listed as a shoemaker or cordwainer - “cordovan worker,” a maker of suede and luxury shoes, rather than a cobbler. His place of business for most of that time was at 36 Julianna Street in the Spring Garden area of Philadelphia. By 1880, his wife had died, 321 and he was living with his daughter Elizabeth and her husband in Ambler, some fifteen miles northwest of Philadelphia.323 He died in 1881 and was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Philadelphia.313 (That cemetery was displaced in the 1950s for urban renewal, with the remains relocated to other area cemeteries.)

His oldest known son was names Charles. It is possible that Joshua’s father was Charles Lloyd325 of Upper Darby, where John Lloyd lived.