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| Abraham Drake's headstone in the Drakes- Cliff Cemetery in Elizabethton, Tennessee |
Abraham Drake was the son of Benjamin Drake and Sarah “Sallie”
Buchanan. He was one of seven children.
He had an older sister Mary, an older brother William and four younger brothers
Isaac, Jacob, Elijah and Ephraim. Abraham was born on July 29, 1761 shortly
after the start of the American Revolution. The revolution did not end until
1791, when the United States Bill of Rights was signed, when Abraham was 30
years old. His father Benjamin participated in the revolution in as a
militiaman under William Christian, according to DAR records. Records suggest that Abraham was born in
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.
At that time most children learned to read and write and
attended school until the age of 8-10. Later in life Abraham was very engaged
in civic matters so he may have had some additional schooling. Abraham married
Elizabeth “Eliza” Murray in about 1789 and between 1790 and December of 1813
they had ten children – four sons Samuel, Ephraim, Jacob and John and six daughters
Sarah, Ruth, Salina, Pricilla, Mary and Elizabeth. Sarah, the eldest daughter
is my third great grandmother.
According to a Drake
Family History by Donald Drake, Abraham appeared on the 1790 census living
in Huntington County, Pennsylvania. By 1796, when Abraham was 35, he and his father
were living in Carter County, Tennessee. Both of them appear on tax lists for
Carter in 1796 through 1800. Abraham’s father Benjamin is shown as a land owner
– initially with 339 acres of land and by 1799 439 acres. Records show that his
four younger brothers were also living in Carter County.
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| This is a portion of the tax list from 1796. The 6th and 7th names listed are Benjamin Drake and Abraham Drake |
From studying court records found at the Family History
Library in Salt Lake City and the book Remembrances
of Carter County by Mildred Kozsuch I’ve found more than 45 cases of
Abraham having served on juries or grand juries in Carter County. There are
four documents from 1797. Two were about his serving on juries in the Court of
Pleas and Quarter Sessions, and two were about Abraham being involved with road
building. On July 5, 1797 he was appointed overseer for the publick (sic) road
that was to start at a ford of the Watauga River above his property and extend
to the head of Indian Creek. It was to continue to the mouth of Sugar Creek and
up the creek to John Peter’s land. From there it was to connect to the farms
owned by Nicholas Carriger, Thomas Dunk and John Miller. The document
stipulated that “all hands living above the tumbling shoals” should work on the
road.
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| The tumbling shoals - a shallow place in the Watauga River this photo from another blogger - 2 RV Gypsies |
Another document, also dated July 1797 included Abraham
in a long list of men who were responsible for building a road “near Elisha
Humphrey’s up the Doe River to the middle ford”.
From February 1803 to January 1806 Abraham was involved
in some manner in five additional transactions that were recorded by the
courts. In 1803 he simply witnessed a couple of land deeds for a man named Godfrey
Carriger. In 1804 Abraham was again charged with overseeing the construction of
a road “from the ford of the river above widow Carter’s to the Sullivan Line at
the head of Indian Creek”. The document stipulated that the hands of Andrew and
Alexander Greer, Benjamin Drake and James Finley were to help build the road.
In April of 1804 Abraham served on another jury, and on January 21, 1806 he
witnessed a deed between John Blevins and Alfred M. Carter.
I’ve found no records for Abraham between 1806 and 1819 when
I found seven documents that reference him. Three were cases where he served on
juries to resolve local land transactions and four were about road construction
projects. Abe and a small group of men were charged with laying off a new
public road from Elizabethton that would cross the Watauga River at the
tumbling shoals and pass across the Doe River. From there it was to go through
the “coaling grounds until it intersects the present road or go by George Emmert’s
land and intersects the old road near George Emmert’s spur.”
I have five more court records for the period 1820 to
1822 when Abe was age 59 to 61. In August of 1820 he was listed on a tax list
that showed that he lived in Captain Patton’s District of Carter County. He was
appointed to serve on the jury of the Court of Pleas and Sessions in 1821 and
in that capacity was again involved in road construction projects in the same
general area near Indian Creek, the Watauga River and on Stoney Creek Road. On
one day – August 18, 1821 Abraham and the rest of the jury ruled on six cases. On
February 12, 1822 he was on the jury when Alfred M. Carter applied to the court
to lay out a 3000 parcel of land so Carter could build a furnace near the ironworks he
owned.
Abraham appeared on the 1840 Carter County census. There
were three individuals in his household at the time – one male and one female
in the 60-70 age bracket which would have been Abe and his wife Eliza and one
other male aged 40-50 which was probably their youngest son John who never
married. The census showed that Abe owned no slaves at that time – which does
not jibe with the inventory of his estate that was made after his death.
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| 1840 Carter County Census, Abraham listed 5th from the bottom |
Like most of his neighbors Abraham was a farmer. He
inherited land from his father and most likely grew tobacco for income.
Starting in 1836, when he was 75, he started distributing his land and slaves
to his children. He gave a parcel of land to his sons Samuel and John on
September 14, 1836. Later that same year in October he gave a slave named Maria
to his granddaughter Emily McLeod. Emily was the daughter of Ruth who married
Abner McLeod. These records are included in the probate packet for Abraham
which is available on Ancestry.com. In 2017 Ancestry had 71 separate documents
in Abe’s probate packet – most are short, cryptic notes on small scraps of
paper. After reading each of these documents I wrote an article for the Nugget –
a magazine published by the California Genealogical Society that summarizes all
that I learned from the material in Abraham’s probate packet. Here is what I
learned:
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| This is a photo of the Lewis farm which was located on Stoney Creek in Elizabethton. Abraham's farm likely looked very similar to this farm. Photo found on Google. |
The vast majority of all money paid out from his estate went
to his children. I was reminded that his
daughters had to receive their share through their husbands. After sorting all
the information in a spreadsheet I could see that Abraham had left nearly equal
amounts to each of his children. Ephraim, Sarah and Ruth each received $600.
Jacob, Pricilla and Mary each got between $550 and $570. One exception, Eliza,
Abraham’s youngest daughter received a total of $1180 – nearly double what all
the others got. Two children, Salina and John were not mentioned. John never
married and had no children. From other sources I know that John suffered from
some sort of mental disorder. I do know that his oldest brother Samuel took
care of John. In my research it is not clear that Salina was a child of Abraham
– this lack of reference reinforces that she may not be one of Abraham’s descendant.
Several of the papers reference Samuel
in his capacity as an administrator but only one was a payment to Samuel. That
paper said, “One day after date of will pay Samuel Drake $300 for value
received of him as witness my hand and seal this 20 day of October 1836.” It
was signed by Abraham and witnessed by John Drake. I suspect that this is due
to a lost document and believe it is most likely that Samuel received an amount
equal to what Sarah received through her husband William Stover – the other
administrator.
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| This is the Sabine Hill home of Nathaniel Taylor in Elizabethton built in 1818. The Drake family home may have looked similar. Google |
There were eight persons who were paid from the estate
that I do not recognize as one of Abrahams children or a spouse. One of these
was N. Williams who was acting as the attorney for the children of Jacob Drake
who was deceased. Another of the unknowns was paid for building Abraham’s coffin
and others for providing services or goods.
I know that my second great grandfather, William Stover
and one of Abraham’s brothers, Samuel Drake administered the estate, and that
they put up a $1000 bond to insure that they would do it right. I know the
settlement date was 28 September 1842. It
took two years to settle his affairs. Actually, three items in the probate
packet are dated after the settlement date – the most recent being 15 July 1850
– nearly ten years after Abraham died.
Abraham had dealings with merchants named Benjamin
Browning, Nicolas Rodgers, T.N. Singletory, C.C. Taylor and William Rockhold
& Son.
A couple of the documents referenced loans that Abraham
had made to his children prior to his death. I know that Abraham’s daughter
Eliza purchased a tract of land from Alfred M. Carter because one of the
payments made to Carter was made from Abraham’s estate and was part of her
inheritance. A separate entry also attributed to Eliza and dated 27 October
1841 for $220 was “for property bought at sale”.
I thought it was interesting that one payment to
Abraham’s daughter Eliza was in goods rather than cash. She received 50 pounds
of coffee and 50 pounds of sugar. The value of the coffee was recorded in cents
but the sugar in shillings – what’s that about?
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| This is the interior of the Tipton-Haynes home in Johnson City near Elizabethton. The Drake home would have contained similar items. |
Abraham died on October 1, 1840 at the age of 79 and was
buried in the Drakes Cliff Cemetery along with several other Drake and Stover
relatives. When I visited Elizabethton in 2012 I took a photo of his headstone.
It is worn and hard to read but starts, “In Memory of Abraham Drake, Died” ….
but I cannot make out the rest
Not included with the above probate documents is an Inventory of the Sale of the Personal Property
of the Estate of Abraham Drake which lists items that were sold after his
death. His wife Elizabeth purchased a slave woman named Syntha for $100 and
household and kitchen furnishings for another $100. My 3rd great
grandmother Sarah bought two slaves – Dave and Allen for $100 each. Various
relatives and neighbors purchased 10 cows, 1 calf, 3 steer, 5 heifers, 5 bulls,
12 sheep and one wagon. The total value of items sold came to $1818.76 ½. This
is in addition to the amounts paid from the estate listed above.
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| Signature of Abraham Drake |
Sources: 1796 - 1800 tax lists, 1840 Carter, TN census, Donald Drake's Family History, Carter County court records, probate documents for Abraham Drake, Google and Robert Nave, Carter Co. historian.
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