Here's an in-depth explanation of how this a John Drake was not the son of William and Philippa Drake:
I descend from John Drake, Windsor, CT through his daughter Elizabeth.
For many years learned researchers generally agreed that John Drake of
Windsor, CT probably came to the colonies from England in 1630 on the Mary & John
and was the son of William Drake of Wiscomb, Southleigh parish, co. Devon,
who was unquestionably a member of the royally-descended Drake family of Ashe,
Musbury parish, co. Devon. The pedigree of that royally-descended family has
been heavily documented.
Recently, however, this “traditional” lineage has been disputed by two very
prominent American genealogists, Robert Charles Anderson, of Salt Lake City,
UT (and editor of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register), and
Douglas Richardson, of Tucson, AZ. I believe that their rejection of the “
traditional” ancestry of John Drake of Windsor, appears to be correct.
The evidence supporting the “traditional” ancestry linking John Drake of
Windsor to the Drakes of Ashe is well known and can be briefly stated as
follows: (1) His granduncle, Richard Drake, mentions John, son of William Drake, in
a 1603 will as being under twelve years of age; (2) The 1619 will of his
father, William Drake, mentions his son John; (3) An Oct. 1630 Massachusetts Bay
Colony record mentions John Drake as applying to be free; (4) John Reading,
of London, refers to John Drake as being in New England in a May 26, 1631
letter to John Winthrop; (5) Francis Drake (John Drake’s first cousin once
removed) mentions John Drake, son of William, in his will of 1634 as being in New
England; (6) records of Tauton, Plymouth, show a John Drake owning land around
1638 or 1639; (7) Windsor, CT records show John Drake owning land in 1640;
(8) most of the passengers on the Mary & John had settled in Windsor, CT by
1635/36; and (9) three children of John Drake of Windsor married children of
adult passengers on the Mary & John. See Frank B. Gay’s The Descendants of
John Drake of Windsor, Connecticut, The Tuttle Co. 1933, pp. xiii-1, Robert
Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, New England Historical and
Genealogical Society, Boston, 1995, Vol. 1, p. 581, and Burton Spear, Search for the
Passengers of the Mary & John 1630, Toledo, OH, 1985, Vol. 1, p. 17.
In my admittedly limited and amateurish search, I have found no scholar who
seriously questions the notion that John Drake of Wiscomb, Southleigh parish,
co. Devon [an undisputed member of the royally-descended Drake family of
Ashe] emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony on the Mary & John in 1630. Nor
has my search found any scholar who disputes the proposition that the John
Drake who (a) applied to be free in Oct. 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
and (b) was referred to in John Reading’s May 26, 1631 letter was the same
John Drake of Wiscomb, Southleigh parish, co. Devon. Indeed, Anderson himself
declares this conclusion to be “sound and acceptable.” “Some Doubts About the
Parentage of John Drake of Windsor, Connecticut,” The American Genealogist,
63:193-206, 193 (Oct. 1988). In addition, all scholars appear to agree that
the John Drake who owned land in Tauton, Plymouth, is the same John Drake who
appears in Windsor, CT, in 1640.
The agreement stops there, however. Anderson and Richardson, at least, hotly
contest the “traditional” conclusion that the John Drake of Tauton,
Plymouth/Windsor, CT is the same John Drake who applied to be free in Oct. 1630 in
the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They assert that there were two John Drakes in
New England in the 1630s and that John Drake of Windsor was not the John Drake
of Wiscomb and, therefore, was not a member of the Drake family of Ashe.
In the October 1988 TAG article noted above, Anderson first challenged the
"traditional" ancestry of John Drake of Windsor, CT, and advanced four grounds
for his challenge: (1) John Drake of Ashe is not named in the wills of four
immediate family members between 1647 and 1678, thus leading to the
likelihood that John Drake of Ashe must have died before 1647 and therefore could not
have been the John Drake of Windsor, CT, who did not die until 1659; (2)
Virtually no overlap exists in the names used by the Drakes of Ashe and the names
of the sons and grandsons of John Drake of Windsor, thereby leading one to
conclude that they must be from two different families, and John Drake of
Windsor did not name any of this three sons after two male relatives who had
remembered him in their wills; (3) There is no record in New England of a John
Drake between Oct. 19, 1630, when a John Drake applied to be made free in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, and 1638/39, when a John Drake was listed as one of
the earliest proprietors of Tauton, Plymouth Colony, thus leading one to
conclude that the John Drake who applied to be made free in 1630 must have "died
shortly after his arrival in New England" without leaving any other trace of
his presence in New England; and (4) John Drake of Windsor, CT did not have
the social status "that one would expect of a scion of the Drakes of Ashe."
See Robert Charles Anderson, “Some Doubts About the Parentage of John Drake of
Windsor, Connecticut,” The American Genealogist, 63:193-206 (Oct. 1988).
More recently, Douglas Richardson has joined Anderson in challenging the
traditional link of the John Drake of Windsor, CT to the Drakes of Ashe, Musbury
parish, co. Devon. According to Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots of
Certain American Colonists Who Came to America before 1700, with Additions and
Corrections by Walter Lee Sheppard, Jr., 7th ed., 1993 [formerly, Ancestral
Roots of Sixty Colonists Who Came to New England between 1623 and 1650], p.
197, in 1993 Douglas Richardson was preparing for publication an article showing
that the John Drake of Windsor, CT was from Hampton-in-Arden parish, co.
Warwick, and not connected with the Drakes of Ashe, Musbury parish, co. Devon.
According to Ancestral Roots, Richardson’s forthcoming article would show that
“in the local parish registers [of Hampton-in-Arden, John Drake had] by a
first wife, children of the same names and ages as John Drake of Windsor and at
the time of his appearance in the New England records a wife of the same
given name as that of John of Windsor.” Ancestral Roots further noted that
Richardson’s forthcoming article would document John Drake of Warwick’s status as
a tradesman, thus matching the social status of the John Drake of Windsor,
CT. In addition, according to Ancestral Roots, Richardson surmised that John
Drake of Warwick emigrated to New England in 1638 with “Rev. Ephraim Hewett
of the adjacent parish of Wroxall, co. Warwick, along with the Griswold and
Bissell families.” Finally, Ancestral Roots stated that Richardson’s
imminent article would be “complete with full evidences on this matter and the
identity of the first wife.”
Unfortunately, Douglas Richardson has never published his article on John
Drake. However, a review of the on-line IGI index provides the following
information from the parish registers of Hampton-in-Arden, co. Warwick: (a) John
Drake, whose mother was Lettic and whose father was John Drake, was christened
on Aug. 25, 1616; (b) Ester Drake, whose mother was Lettice and whose father
was John Drake, was christened on Jan. 18, 1618; (c) Job Drake, whose mother
was Lettice and whose father was John Drake, was christened on March 5, 1620;
and (d) Elizabeth Drake, whose mother was Elizabeth and whose father was John
Drake, was christened on Jan. 9, 1625.
Three of these children – John, Job, and Elizabeth – match the children’s
names and approximate ages of the children of John Drake of Windsor, CT. There
is no record in Windsor, CT of a child named Ester. Conversely, there are no
records in the IGI Hampton-in-Arden parish register index for Jacob or Mary
Drake, two other children of John Drake of Windsor, CT. Although the IGI index
does not list the surname of Lettice, Richardson has informed me in a
private e-mail that her surname was Shakespeare. He did not cite a source for
that opinion. I have found the following information on the surname of John
Drake of Windsor’s wife Elizabeth. First, Henry R. Stiles, The History and
Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut, Hartford, CT, 1892, Vol. 2, p. 178,
says that “The Rockwell Geneal. gives her name before m. as Elizabeth Rogers.”
In a “Notes and Queries” entry published in the New England Historical and
Genealogical Register, Vol. 36, p. 83 (1882), a reader named E. McC.
Salisbury wrote the following: “In the New York Genealogical and Biographical
Record, April, 1847, pp. 101, 102, a descendant gives the name of the wife of John
Drake the emigrant (who came to Boston in 1630, and removed to Windsor,
Conn.) as Elizabeth Rogers. She was the great-grandmother of the writer, Matthew
Rockwell, whose genealogical paper was dated 1731.” I have not read the “
Rockwell Geneal.” referenced by Stiles and Salisbury.
Further, the IGI on-line index records at least two Jacob Drakes in co.
Devon, albeit at a later date and in parishes different from Musbury and
Southleigh, the core parishes for the Drakes of Ashe: (a) Jacob Drake, son of Henary
Drake, was christened on April 29, 1655 in Barnstaple parish, co. Devon; (b)
Jacob Drake, son of Francis Drake, was christened on Oct. 16, 1673 in Ide
parish, co. Devon; and (c) Jacob Drake married Susanath Hockaday on March 8,
1691 in Ide parish, co. Devon.
I have investigated two avenues in an effort to show the correctness of the
traditional link between John Drake of Windsor, CT and the Drakes of Ashe,
Musbury parish, co. Devon. First, I have searched for evidence that Job or
Jacob Drake was in New England before the Hewett party arrived in 1638. So far,
I have found only an undocumented statement that Jobe Drake was present in
Windsor in 1635/1636. R. R. Hinman, A Catalogue of the Names of the First
Puritan Settlers of the Colony of Connecticut; with the Time of their Arrival in
the Colony, and their standing in society, together with their place of
residence, as far as can be discovered by the records, Hartford, 1846, pp. 11, 22.
Second, I have searched for evidence that the John Drake of
Hampton-in-Arden, co. Warwick is actually the son of William Drake, of Wiscomb, Southleigh
parish, co. Devon, and thus a bona fide member of the family of the Drakes of
Ashe, Musbury parish, co. Devon. I have found nothing yet to support this
premise beyond the ambiguous appearance of two Jacob Drakes in co. Devon. I have
not yet tried to connect those Jacob Drakes to the Drakes of Ashe.
Because neither of the two approaches discussed immediately above has born
fruit, I have – at least temporarily – abandoned my effort to establish the
correctness of the traditional link between John Drake of Windsor, CT and the
Drakes of Ashe, Musbury parish, co. Devon. I currently believe that the John
Drake of Windsor, CT is from Hampton-in-Arden, co. Warwick."
http://newsarch.rootsweb.com/th/read/DRAKE/2006-08/1155344642
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