John Drake

1794-1881

Jemima Guest

1794-1881

As a biography of his son Albert puts it, "John Drake was born in New Jersey, and throughout his life was engaged in agricultural pursuits" and he was "of English descent." According to obituaries of Albert and Marcus, the family had lived in New Jersey for more than 100 years. This, along with DNA testing strongly suggests that he was a descendant of Captain Francis Drake of Piscataway. According to cemetery records, he was born April 30, 1794. It is possible that he came from Morris County, NJ, which is where his wife was born.

Jemima Guest was born in Morris County, New Jersey, on September 30, 1798. She was the daughter of Jacob Guest and Irena Culver Guest. According to family tradition, Jemima was called Mima. The Guest family likely moved from Morris County, NJ to Cortland County, NY, in 1812.

The first known record for John Drake places him in Truxton, Cortland County, New York in the 1825 census. He does not appear in 1820 census for Cortland, and no extra male of the right age is living with the other families from New Jersey that I have been able to trace. The only other New Jersey Drake in Cortland County was Jonathan Drake, also of Truxton, who was born in 1779 and was related by marriage to Irene Culver Guest's older brother George Culver, who moved to Cortland County in 1803. John Drake moved to Cortland County and married Jemima Guest some time before 1822, when their daughter Mary Ann was born.

The New York census records for 1825 and 1835, which are more detailed than the federal census records, give us some picture of his life in Cortland County. In 1825, he occupied two acres of improved land in Truxton and owned two cattle, one horse, fifteen sheep, and seven hogs, which was a fairly substantial amount of livestock for the time. In 1835, he was living in Virgil, and had increased his livestock to nineteen cattle, three horses, forty-five sheep, and eleven hogs. There is no record that he owned land in Cortland County, and census records indicate that he moved from Truxton (1825) across the border to Madison County (1827-28), where his daughter Irene Charity and son Jacob G. were born. By 1830, he was in Cortlandville, Cortland County, and for the 1835 census he was in Virgil, Cortland County. Various sources indicate that his son Marcus was born in Homer, Cortland County, though one source indicates DeRuyter, Madison County.

In 1837, the family moved to Fredonia, Chautauqua County, where Jemima's parents had moved a few years earlier. In September, the Fredonia Baptist Church received a letter for Jemima Drake, and members of the family continued to be associated with that church for decades. I have found no records of the family among the Cortland Baptist records, but since the Guest family were Presbyterian, it is possible that John Drake was from a Baptist background.

In 1840, the family moved to nearby Sheridan township, where they remained. John Drake's first recorded land purchase was in 1853, and he purchased additional land in 1856. He died in Sheridan on April 27, 1881, and is buried in Sheridan Cemetery. For unknown reasons, his estate was not probated for nearly ten years, and the date of death on the probate papers is wrong. (His correct death date is independently confirmed by a newspaper article.) The estate was administered by Marcus Drake, and it shows the value of his property as less than $200.

After John's death, Jemima Drake moved to Buffalo, where she died at the home of Marcus Drake on May 3, 1888.

My thanks to Eliza Drake Auth for giving me a copy of the photo of Jemima Guest and John Drake.