Person:John Drake (3)

On a list of original proprietors of Taunton that dates to 1638 or 1639. He is found in 1641 in Windsor, receiving an average size grant of 16 acres.

He may have arrived on one of the ships that left Weymouth, England in Apr 1637, as several of those families ended up in Taunton.

Recorded in the 1640 Town Records at Windsor in the list of “First Settlers of Windsor, five years after their removal from Dorchester.” (NEHGR 5:365) [The list includes people who arrived after 1635, such as those who came with Huit in 1639]

On his death, town records of Windsor gave the following account: "August 17, 1659, John Drake, Senior dyed accidentaly, as he was driving a cart loaded with corn, to carry from his house to his son Jacob's the Cattle being two oxen and his mare, in the high way against John Griffin'ssomething scar'd the Cattle, and they set a running, and he labouring to stop them by taking hold on the mare, was thrown down on his face, and cart wheels went over him: brake one of his legs and bruised his body, so that he was taken up dead, being carried into his daughter's house and life come again, but dyed in a short time and was buried on the 18th day of August 1659."

There are pedigrees floating around linking him to the Drakes in Ashe, Devon (the family of the navigator Francis Drake). However, that family was of considerable prominence and wealth, which is not reflected in the social standing of this John. In addition, the wills of the family don’t mention him, with the exception of that of Francis in 1634 (the source of the speculation in the first place). He is also not likely the John Drake who came with Winthrop’s Fleet to Boston in 1630. That John is listed as one to be made a freeman in Oct 1630, but did not actually take the oath. Most of the other men of whom that was the case died or returned to England. Furthermore, there is no other record of John Drake until 1638. It would have been virtually impossible for a man with a family to avoid any mention for 8 years. (See articles in The American Genealogist for a more in depth explanation - excerpted here: http://www.xroyvision.com.au/drake/history/hist33.html.)

1. ↑ Gay, Alice M; Frank B. (Frank Butler) Gay; Harrie Beekman Drake; and Connecticut) Timothy Drake Fund (Hartford. The Descendants of John Drake of Windsor, Connecticut: Includes the Manuscript of the Late Harrie Beekman Drake. (Rutland, Vermont: The Tuttle Company, 1933)
   2.
2. ↑ White, John Barber, Barber Genealogy, Lillian May Wilson (Ed), Haverhill, MA: Nicholas Print, 1909, NEHGS CS 71 B24; Also online at HeritageQuest.
3. ↑ Windsor Town Records.
4.   Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   2:70.

   JOHN, Dorchester, or Boston, came in the fleet with Winthrop prob. as we find his req. 19 Oct. 1630 to be made freem. yet his adm. is not found, and he rem. from our col. perhaps as a purch. of Taunton 1639 [Baylies, I. 286], and not long after to Windsor, and there, by a cartwheel running over him, was k. 17 Aug. 1659, leav. s. Jacob and Job, bef. ment. and John, beside one, if not more, d. His wid. d. 7 Oct. 1681, but we may hesitate at the old ch. rec. story of her hundredth yr. yet agree to the main truth of her being call. "old wid. D."

Founders of Windsor, CT

Windsor was the first permanent English settlement in Connecticut. Local indians granted Plymouth settlers land at the confluence of the Farmington River and the west side of the Connecticut River, and Plymouth settlers (including Jonathan Brewster, son of William) built a trading post in 1633. But the bulk of the settlement came in 1635, when 60 or more people led by Reverend Warham arrived, having trekked overland from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Most had arrived in the New World five years earlier on the ship "Mary and John" from Plymouth, England. The settlement was first called Dorchester, and was renamed Windsor in 1637. See: Stiles History of Ancient Windsor - Thistlewaite's Dorset Pilgrims - Wikipedia entry Loomis homestead, oldest in CT. Settlers at Windsor by the end of 1640, per the Descendants of the Founders of Ancient Windsor: Abbot - Alford - S. Allen - M. Allyn - Barber - Bartlett - M. (Barrett) (Huntington) Stoughton - Bascomb - Bassett - Benett - Birge - Bissell - Branker - Brewster - Buckland - Buell - Carter - Chappel - D. Clarke - J. Clarke - Cooke - Cooper - Denslow - Dewey - Dibble - Dumbleton - Drake - Dyer - Eels - Eggleston - Filley - Ford - Foulkes - Fyler - Gaylord - Francis Gibbs - William Gilbert - Jere. Gillett - Jon. Gillett - N. Gillett - Grant - Gridley - E. Griswold - M. Griswold - Gunn - Hannum - Hawkes - Hawkins - Hayden - Haynes - Hill - Hillier - Holcombe - Holmes - Holt - Hosford - Hoskins - Hoyte - Hubbard - Huit - Hulbert - Hull - Hurd - Hydes - Loomis - Ludlow - Lush - Marshfield - A. Marshall - T. Marshall - Mason - M. (Merwin) (Tinker) Collins - M. Merwin - Mills - Moore - Newberry - Newell - Oldage - Orton - Osborn - Palmer - Parsons - Parkman - Pattison - Phelps - Phelps - Phillips - Pinney - Pomeroy - Pond - Porter - Preston - Rainend - Randall - Rawlins - Reeves - J. Rockwell - W. Rockwell - B. Rossiter - St. Nicholas - Saltonstall - Samos - M. Sension (St. John) – R. Sension - Sexton - Staires - Starke - F. Stiles – H. Stiles - J. Stiles – T. Stiles - Stoughton - Stuckey - Talcott - E. Taylor - J. Taylor - Terry - Thornton - Thrall - Tilley - Tilton - Try - F. (Clark) (Dewey) (Phelps) - Vore - Warham - Weller - Whitehead - A. Williams - J. Williams - R. Williams - Wilton - Winchell - Witchfield - Wolcott - Young Current Location: Hartford County, Connecticut   Parent Towns: Dorchester, Massachusetts   Daughter Towns: Windsor Locks; South Windsor; East Windsor; Ellington; Bloomfield