The Search for the Descendants of Henry Brasater Drake
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The Search for the Ancestors and Descendants of Henry Brasater Drake of Coles County, Illinois By Michael E. Drake Heritage Books, Inc 2002 i Copyright 1996 & 2002 by Michael E. Drake Published 2002 by HERITAGE BOOKS, INC. 1540E Pointer Ridge Place Bowie, Maryland 20716 1-800-398-7709 www.heritagebooks.com ISBN 0-7884-2108-5 A Complete Catalog Listing Hundreds of Titles On History, Genealogy, and Americana Available Free Upon Request ii Acknowledgements Of course, I could not have written this book without the help and understanding of my wife Boge. (Her real name is Sandra. Boge rhymes with rogue.) She understood my obsession with the project from the beginning and never objected to the expense of time or money. My search for Drakes would have ended prematurely without the invaluable guidance provided by my friend, Clyde Bunch of Nicholasville, Kentucky. I must extend gratitude to Helen Drake who has kept records for family members for years recording births, marriages, and deaths. From the beginning, she shared everything with me. I thank Eileen Drake Harlow of Brigham City, Utah for pulling it all together. Her mother and father began collecting information on our wing of the Drake family in the early 1920's. Eileen shared and collaborated in the true tradition of genealogists around the country. A more sharing bunch, you'll never run into. iii iv Introduction The latest edition of the work is an update. Since the early 1990's there has been an explosion of available information. That and the ability to communicate with other people who are looking for their roots by e-mail has allowed me to correct some errors and add to my knowledge about this wing of the Drake family in America. The last section in this edition is my best guess as to who the progenitor of this wing was in New Kent County, Virginia. I could not have written this segment of the book as it was originally published. The computer just wasn't strong enough or available enough. Originally, the book was designed as a guide to understanding my wing of the family confirming for readers who they were and who they were not. For many it can used as a quick reference as to where they fall into the picture of the Drake family in America. It is a time ordered narrative. I tell the story of my search for ancestors as it unfolded. I hope others who have undertaken the search for roots can read it and empathize with the mistakes, the false assumptions, the nagging need to know about just one more generation, the disappointments, and finally the joy of learning some true things about ancestors. Moreover, it is a detective story that gets partially solved. In that regard it is like all family histories. No matter how much research 1 is done, there is always another generation to be uncovered. The story will always have a beginning and a middle, but it will never have and end. That's genealogy. 2 About the Author Michael Drake was born in Charleston, Illinois on March 13, 1944. He was the third of five brothers, all of whom were raised in Charleston, a city that regularly makes the top 100 Best Places in America to Grow Up. He graduated from Charleston High School in 3 1962. He attended Eastern Illinois University, also located in Charleston, from 1962 through 1967 earning a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education. Married as a student at the university, Mr. Drake's first child Darren was born in 1964. Mr. Drake went to work at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, Illinois in the fall of 1967 where he taught speech, drama and English for 34 years. In 1972, he earned a masters degree from Eastern. He retired from teaching in the spring of 2001. In 1984, he married Sandra Jo Robinson of Shelbyville, Illinois. The couple has two children, Meghan, 16 and Nate, 15. They both attend Lyons Township High School. Boge is the front office secretary at the local junior high school. Mr. Drake is an incurable journalist having kept a daily journal since 1974. He has written several plays which he produced as a high school drama coach. The one of which he is most proud is a musical play featuring country and western music. You guessed it, he loves to play and sing country music. In the short time since Mr. Drake retired from teaching, he has pursued his hobby of woodworking and writing. He is currently writing a novel which will serve as a model for a book explaining a method of how to write one's first novel, a sort of writing novels for dummies. Oh, yes, he still maintains contact with Drake genealogists around the country. 4 One Information is like minerals. The less of it there is, the more valuable. In Henry Brasater Drake's family Bible, I found a yellowed clipping from The Plaindealer, a now defunct newspaper that was once published in my home town of Charleston, Illinois. $3,000,000,000 Estate Charleston Heirs of Sir Francis Drake Interested & May Investigate Plaindealer readers will probably have noticed reports concerning a vast estate left by Sir Francis Drake in England and the probability of American heirs being benefited by it. Charleston has a number of directly interested people. A number of children of Elijah Drake, who is said to be a direct descendant of the intrepid old navigator, live in the city. The members of the family are: Madames Isaac Clark, Eugene Frisbe and Milt and Pete Drake of this city, Madames Martha McKee of Mattoon, and Fannie Johns of Brazil, Indiana, and Joe Drake of Newberg, Indiana. Mrs. Clark also has a niece in this city, Miss Cynthia Drake, and a nephew in Neoga, Harry Drake, who are interested. 5 It is expected that these heirs will have a meeting here in the near future to discuss the advisability of a thorough investigation claims (illegible) report has it that the estate is valued at three billion dollars. I had heard the story from my grandfather, along with many other stories. Until a few years ago, I assumed that most of the family history had passed on with my Grandfather Drake, who died in 1972. I did not know how much of what he told me about everything was myth. One day I got curious. I asked my Dad, "Who was your Great Grandfather?" "I don't know," he said. Sitting in his favorite armchair in front of a Chicago Cubs broadcast, he thought about it for a time. Then he said, "My Dad always said it was Ervin Drake." He cocked his head slightly and squinted his eyes. "Yeah, I do remember that much," he concluded. With a quick nod of his head, he went back to his ball game. Dad just was not that interested in his roots. My name is Michael Eugene Drake. I was born in Charleston, Illinois on March 13, 1944. Donald Franklin Drake, my Dad, was in the Marine Corps at the time. He was born in Paradise Township of Coles County on July 11, 1916. I had gotten about all the information out of my father as I was ever going to get, so that afternoon I went to the Coles County Courthouse located in the middle of Charleston's town square. I found some information. The next stop was Mound Cemetery, the biggest burial ground in the town. It was overcast and drizzling rain. Thunder rolled in the distance. My shoes got soaked as I made my way from one head stone to the next looking for a name. I was hoping I could find the grave stone of my Great Great Grandmother's 6 second husband. I found it. It was not very exciting, and I walked back toward my car. That was when I found a cluster of family graves that neither my Dad nor Mom knew existed. By this time I was hooked and beginning to crave more information, so, on Dad's advice, I called Dad's cousin, Cynthia Sherman. Cynthia had, by default, become the unofficial family historian. She gave me what information she had, but I was still not satisfied. It was the summer of 1978, and I wanted to find a library with some real information. I left Charleston with my mother. I would drop her off at Anderson, Indiana where she would visit a distant cousin, and then drive to Fort Wayne where one of the ten best genealogical libraries in the country is located. It is a great library, but I was very inexperienced and had not budgeted enough time. I did find some information, but it just confirmed what I already had. No one else in the family seemed very interested, so I put the whole question aside for years until I got a phone call from a distant cousin who lives in Charleston. I had not lived there since the fall of 1967. His name is Bob Schwartz, and Bob wanted me to send him any information on the Drake family that I had. I rummaged around in the attic, found the papers I had kept, copied them and sent the copies to him. Going over the old information, meager as it was, piqued my interest once again. I live in LaGrange, Illinois. The village has a good library so I resumed my search for ancestors in the local library. There was actually a good section on genealogy there. Finding more information than I thought I would, I was at it again.