John Oake and Susanna Allen of Westborough

On October 4, 1752, the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman of Westborough wrote in his diary: "N.B. Mr. John Oake, who has so long been under a terrible Evil of Cancer, was bury'd this afternoon." The editors' note adds "Of Westborough." John Oake was thirty-seven. He left a widow, Susanna, and three living children, the youngest seventeen months old.

The marriage, 1742

John was born at Marlborough on March 16, 1714/15, the son of Nathaniel and Mary Oake. Susanna was born at Westborough on August 31, 1723, the daughter of Ephraim and Susannah Allen; Vital Records of Westborough (p. 10) enters "Susannah, d. Epharim and Susannah, Aug. 31, 1723." She was probably the Susanna who married John Oake. Her parents' marriage is entered at Roxbury on November 28, 1716 ("Susanna, and Ephraim Allin"); the Roxbury index gives her mother's maiden name as Beacon, and Bent's 1896 genealogy and Parkman's diary (an uncle, Mr. Beacon of Woodstock, in June 1739) agree. Her gravestone, though, gives an age that does not fit the Beacon birth reported in the genealogy, so her mother's identity is unsettled. Her father Ephraim is probably the "Ephraim, full age" among the children of Samuel Allen of Sudbury, whose estate was settled on October 27, 1721 (the others were John, Moses, Aaron, Sarah, Mary and Abigail).

The Westborough church record reads, "62. November 3. John Oake to Susanna Allen," under 1742. He was twenty-seven and she was nineteen. John's father had died in 1721, and his mother had remarried in 1722; the guardian of John and his brothers and sisters had been their uncle by marriage, Jonathan Forbush.

Five children

Westborough's records give John and Susanna five children: Hannah, born July 20, 1743; Leviner, May 23, 1745; Elijah, April 27, 1747; a second Hannah, April 20, 1749; and Nathaniel, May 16, 1751. Two died young. The first Hannah died on September 16, 1745, and Parkman wrote on September 18, "I went to the Funeral of Mr. John Oakes eldest Child between 2 and 3." Elijah died on December 1, 1750, and on December 4 the diary says, "Mr. Martyn was gone to the Funeral of a Child of John Oakes, and return'd not till Eve." The child is not named in the entry; the dates fit Elijah.

The diary also shows John as a messenger. On April 27, 1745, he brought an invitation from "Aunt Holloway," probably the wife of his mother's brother William Holloway.

The second Hannah grew up. The 1906 register says she married Seth Alexander, a farmer, on June 17, 1768. He was a sergeant in 1775-76 in Capt. William Humphreys's company and an ensign in June 1777 in Capt. Oliver Capron's company, "marching to the relief of Ticonderoga," and he died on December 10, 1780, leaving eight children. On November 18, 1783, she married John Follett, a farmer born at Attleboro, "a Revolutionary soldier and later captain of militia," and had six more. One of them, King Follett, became an early Latter-day Saint; Joseph Smith's 1844 funeral sermon for him is the King Follett Discourse (King Follett). She lived at Winchester, New Hampshire, and died on April 13, 1838. Henry Lebbeus Oak, who compiled the register, wrote that "strangely no knowledge or tradition of her family was possessed in my own branch—descended from her only brother—Nathaniel—though the two lived for a time in Winchester."

The farm

The register says John bought a farm and built a house on it, about two miles north of Northborough village. The place was "known later as the 'Gasset Place,'" owned in 1897 by George Smith, and "a portion of the old house is thought to be included in the newer one." It calls John "a prosperous farmer, being in 1749 one of the fifteen largest taxpayers in town." It also says that "nothing respecting him has been handed down through the son and daughter who alone lived to maturity." It counts his descendants at "about 1200" and adds: "All in the male line have retained the name 'Oak' in its original form." It also warns that "another John Oaks of Sunderland and Petersham" had been "erroneously identified with our John by some writers—the error resulting in no little confusion and wasted labor." What is known of him comes from the town, church, probate and diary records on this page (register, page 11).

The estate, 1752

Worcester County's probate docket enters No. 44119, "Oak, John, Westborough," in 1752: "Susannah Oak appointed Administratrix. Oct. 18 Bond £400 Samuel Allen & George Oak, sureties." The inventory was £314 2s 8d in real estate and £82 5s 6d in personal estate; together they make £396 8s 2d, which the register gives in whole pounds as an appraisement of £396. George Oak, one of John's brothers, was a surety for his brother's widow. The account was allowed on November 6, 1754, and a balance of £18 19s 6d on June 24, 1757. The docket gives case summaries, not the petitions or the inventory itself.

On November 3, 1752, Susannah Oak was also appointed guardian of the three living children, Hanah, Levina and Nathaniell, with Thomas Billing as surety. In 1766 the docket enters a new guardian for Nathaniell, with Nathaniel Oak and Jonathan Oak as sureties. The sureties were probably John's brothers Nathaniel and Jonathan; their names fit, and the 1906 register says the boy lived with his uncle Nathaniel.

A second marriage, 1754

In May 1754 Susanna of Westborough and John Butler of Shrewsbury declared their intention to marry. Shrewsbury's records enter their children: John, born September 24, 1754; Andrew, June 13, 1756; Elijah, April 17, 1758; Susannah, March 15, 1760; and a second Elijah, July 24, 1762. The 1906 register counts six children of the second marriage. The family moved to Shrewsbury. The 1906 Oak register says they went on to Winchester, New Hampshire, in 1766, and that Susanna died on May 6, 1814; no independent record of either has been found.

A copy of Nathaniel Oak's sworn statement, filed December 22, 1837, in Joseph Marble's pension file, adds to Susanna's story. Nathaniel Oak of Chelsea, Vermont, aged eighty-six, swore that he had been present in the spring of 1777 at Brattleboro when Joseph Marble married his own half-sister, and that he had lived at Winchester, New Hampshire during the Revolution. The saved transcription gives the half-sister's name before marriage as "Susan Button," while the image's own catalog caption gives "Susannah Butler." On the page itself, shown above, the surname is written twice and can be read either way. The name, town and age make this Nathaniel probably the Chelsea pensioner born in 1751, though the statement itself does not establish that identification. The statement is not in Nathaniel's own pension file (S.18534, all 21 pages read on October 3); it adds contemporary testimony toward the Butler connection discussed above, not proof of the whole parentage chain.

If the identification is right, the statement fits the Westborough boy born in 1751, who had a half-sister Susannah by his mother's second marriage, and his later life is told on the Hastings story.

What is missing

• No death record for John has been found. The diary's entry of his burial is the only record.
• Hudson's History of the Town of Marlborough (1862, p. 426) says this John "m. Experience," and Marlborough's records enter "Elizabeth, d. John and Experience, Aug. 23, 1733" and "Philip, s. John and Experience, April 13, 1735." They belong to a different John. The History of the Town of Sunderland (1899, p. 477) gives that family in full: a "John Oaks, [who] lived at Marlboro, and had there, wife Experience, and at least two children," moved to Petersham by 1738 and to Sunderland about 1748, and died on February 3, 1767, with children Elizabeth (1733), Philip (1735), a daughter Experience (1742) and others. Its compilers say they had "abandoned the opinion once entertained by them, that he was son of Nathaniel of Marlboro." This John Oake was buried at Westborough in 1752, so the two cannot be one man; the 1906 register also warns of "another John Oaks of Sunderland and Petersham, erroneously identified with our John by some writers."
• The docket names none of Susanna's relatives beyond the sureties. The guardianship petitions and the inventory have not yet been examined.
• Susanna's later life rests on the register. Her second husband, John Butler, is known only from the marriage entry and his children's births.
• The register says Leviner "died young," but Shrewsbury, where her mother had moved the family in 1754, records the marriage of "Alexander and Levinah Oak, Nov. 1, 1764" (Vital Records of Shrewsbury, under McDowel). She may be John's daughter, since the family had moved to Shrewsbury, but the entry names no parents and the register says John's Levinah "died young," so the identification is not proved.
• Hannah's two marriages, Seth Alexander's service and the Winchester years rest on the register; Winchester's records and the New Hampshire rolls have not been searched for them.
• The 1749 tax list and the deed for the farm have not been found.

The family of John's parents is on the research log and in Mary Holloway: three marriages and a working widow, and the moves of the children are on Where Nathaniel Oak's family went.

Sources

• Westborough church records, 1742 marriage (Parkman Project transcription, PDF p. 318); Vital Records of Westborough, pp. 10, 80-81 and 249. Vital Records of Marlborough, p. 142 (John's birth).
• Ebenezer Parkman, diary, April 27, 1745; September 18, 1745; December 4, 1750; October 4, 1752 (Ebenezer Parkman Project). diary.ebenezerparkman.org/
• Worcester County probate dockets, 1731-1881: Nos. 44112, 44119, 44122 and 44127, read on the page images.
• Vital Records of Shrewsbury (marriage intention and births of the Butler children).
• Nathaniel Oak's pension file S.18534, National Archives; H. L. Oak, Oak-Oaks-Oakes: Family Register (1906), pp. 11 and 17-19. Public domain; browse it page by page or read the whole book: PDF, from the Internet Archive.
• Joseph Marble, Revolutionary War pension file (Vermont pension no. 26015), National Archives, via Fold3: sworn statement of Nathaniel Oak, December 22, 1837, p. 37, shown inline above.