Josiah lived in Hadley and Amherst, Massachusetts. He was a retailer of spirits and a tea merchant, the first justice of the peace in Amherst in 1758, a representative to the General Court in 1760 and 1762, and captain of the Amherst militia in 1773. From The History of Hadley, by Sylvester Judd, footnote of pg. 411: "According to tradition, the whigs of Amherst burnt Capt. Chauncey's commissions under a tree, with some display." He died in New York state.
Chauncey lived in Amherst in 1755, and had two enslaved people between the ages of 14 and 45. One was Caesar Prutt who Josiah inherited in 1745, from his father, Rev. Isaac Chauncey.
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