John Oaks of Exeter: a soldier's widow has to prove a marriage

On October 4, 1843, a justice of the District Court came to a house in Exeter, Maine, because Abigail Oaks, aged eighty-three, was "unable to appear in Court by reason of bodily infirmity." She made her mark, and swore that she was the widow of John Oaks, "a Revolution soldier," that they had married on December 13, 1783, and that when he entered the service "he resided in the town of Harvard in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." She had no papers to show. The file that her declaration belongs to, pension file R.7758 at the National Archives, runs to twenty-seven pages and is mostly an effort to prove that one wedding took place.

John's account of his service

John Oaks had told his story himself, in 1818, when Congress opened pensions to Revolutionary soldiers in need. He was then living at Bangor, "aged sixty three," and described three enlistments. In about January 1776 he "inlisted as a soldier under Capt. Gilbert (then of Littleton) & Col. Prescott's Reg. for one year," and "served this time out." At West Point he "immediately inlisted again for three years under Capt. Sam[ue]l Derby (of old York) & Col. Bailey's Reg." (the clerk's copy leaves the captain's name uncertain, Derby or Denby). Then he "inlisted again under Capt. White in Col. Brooks's Reg. for nine months," and in that time was ordered to take about sixty invalids to Fish Kill and put them in the care of Doctor McKnight, who kept him there "as an assistant in taking care of the sick" until the close of the war. His declaration survives in a clerk's copy; he swore the original on April 4, 1818. He added, "My Discharges are all lost," and "I am now reduced & need the assistance of my country for support." The pension was $8 a month from April 4, 1818, and the certificate issued in April 1819.

No battle is named anywhere in his papers. The 1820 schedule he swore at Bangor puts his estate at $25 and his debts at $70, and lists his household: his wife, aged sixty-four (her 1843 declaration makes her about four years younger), and a son, aged twenty, "sick, and has been so for three years last past."

The wedding that left no record

When he died, his widow applied for a widow's pension, and her declaration shows what she had to prove: that the marriage "took place previous to the first day of January seventeen hundred and ninety four." There was no marriage entry. The town clerk of Canaan, Jesse Washburn, deposed on August 31, 1843 that he found "no record of the marriage of John Oaks to Abigail Lambert in any book of Records in the Town Clerks Office in said Canaan."

The proof offered in place of a record was a woman who had been there. Pamela Lambert of Canaan, aged seventy-six, widow of Sherebiah Lambert, swore the same day that she "was at the wedding of John Oakes & Abigail Lambert," that it was "on the thirteenth day of December A.D. 1783," that it was "on thanksgiving day," and that the Reverend Ezekiel Emerson, "who resided down the Kennebec river," married them "at the dwelling house of Mr. Sherebiah Lambert father of my late husband." The Lambert farm was in a plantation that later became Canaan; the farm is now in Skowhegan. She added: "Mr. John Oakes the Bridegroom was my brother & a revolutionary soldier. After my Brother John Oakes was married he settled in said Canaan he afterwards moved to Machias County of Washington & from thence to Bangor County of Penobscot & from thence to Exeter." Henry Sewall of Sangerville gave a second deposition, on August 25, 1843, about the minister. The file never names Abigail's father, but her surname and the wedding at Sherebiah Lambert's house make it probable that she belonged to the Canaan Lamberts. In a woman of Pamela's age, "brother" could also mean a brother-in-law.

The date of his death

His widow swore that he "died at said Exeter on the 25th day of June 1842." The Exeter selectmen, John Cutler and Andrew Shaw, certified on October 2, 1843 that he "died in this town in June 1842," which agrees on the month, the year and the place and says nothing of the day.

The Pension Office's docket slip reads "The husband, died 25th June '43," which is probably a clerk's slip, since the application was made in 1843. Only the docket slip disagrees, and the month and year rest on the widow and the selectmen together; the day rests on the widow alone.

What became of the claim

The widow's claim was marked "Rejected" under the act of July 7, 1838. The reason is not written on the slip, but the file shows what was missing. Joseph Carr of Bangor, who corresponded with the Pension Office about the claim, said on October 10, 1843 that she was "very aged and infirm and also very destitute," and on May 20, 1844, in answer to the Commissioner's letter of the 15th, that "she is dead" and that, unless satisfactory proof of the marriage could be found, "it will be throwing away money for nothing to expend any more." His last sentence about the family: "her poor son has already spent all the money he could obtain they are very destitute." So Abigail lived at least until October 1843 and was dead by May 1844. Her death date and burial place are not in the file. The one child it names is "John Oakes of said Exeter who is her eldest son."

Is he Captain Jonathan Oaks's son?

The Lewiston Journal of April 29, 1899, which gives an account of Captain Jonathan's family that agrees in outline with his will, says of Captain Jonathan Oak that "John Oak, son of Captain Jonathan Oak, served in the war for Independence," that he was at Bennington and made a journey to Quebec "at the commission of Washington to bear dispatches," and that "he died in Exeter, Maine, where he had resided many years, in 1842, aged 86 years," with an obituary and a poem by David Barker. The poem, at least, is in print: David Barker, who was born and spent most of his life at Exeter, printed "Lines on the Death of John Oaks" in his Poems (1876, p. 268), and it calls the dead man one "who bled at Bennington." It gives no date, place or age, and the Journal's quotation differs from the book in two lines. It is probably about this John Oaks. The newspaper obituary has not been found in the Maine papers that can be searched.

Other records fit the proposed identification without proving it. The will of Captain Jonathan Oaks of Canaan, made in December 1784, names a son John, and a John Okes is among the Canaan heads of household in 1790, which fits Pamela's statement that he settled at Canaan after his marriage. His own ages and the 1840 and 1899 figures agree on a birth about 1754-56: sixty-three in 1818 and sixty-six in 1820 point to about 1754-55, a John Oaks of Exeter, aged eighty-four, is on the 1840 list of pensioners, and the 1899 piece gives eighty-six in 1842. John Conant's mother, Lydia, was Captain Jonathan's daughter. In the family account preserved in the note attributed to him, three of her brothers, John, Jonathan and Daniel, visited when he was small (How the cabin-boy story was handed down).

Against it, the pension file never names a parent for John or for Pamela, never mentions Bennington or Quebec (it names no battle at all, and the second enlistment, of three years from 1777, is his only service that could have reached August 1777), and has Harvard only on his widow's word. His captain in 1776 was "then of Littleton," a town not far from Harvard, but that is a place for the captain, not for John. The printed Harvard records have no John born about 1756 among their Oak entries, which are the children of Jonathan from 1750 to 1771 and of Seth and Elizabeth; that gap counts against the identification, and nothing explains it. So the identification is probable. It comes from the 1899 newspaper, the 1906 register, the matching names and dates and the Lambert marriage, and no record calls him "son of Jonathan."

One more piece points the same way. The Maine Marriages index enters Sherebiah Lambert Jr. (1759-1833, of Canaan and Skowhegan) marrying Permelia "Millie" Oaks (1768-1845) at Canaan in 1787. No image of the marriage entry has been examined. The will of Jonathan Oaks of Canaan names a daughter Mille, and Harvard's records name a Melea in 1768. Pamela Lambert, who swore that John was her brother, was seventy-six in 1843 and the widow of a Sherebiah Lambert, and is probably Permelia, called Millie, a daughter of Captain Jonathan, under another form of the name. That would make John a son of Captain Jonathan. No record names Millie's father; the link to the Captain comes from the will's "Mille," the ages and an unsourced, user-edited FamilySearch tree.

The 1906 family register makes the same identification. It lists John (no. 27) among the children of Captain Jonathan Oak by his third wife, Sarah Wheeler, born at Harvard on October 22, 1757 (or 1758), and married about 1780 to "Abigail Lambert, probably sister of Sherebiah, who married his sister Millie" (the file's eyewitness gives December 13, 1783). Its entry for Millie (no. 31) has her baptized at Harvard on September 11, 1768, marrying Sherebiah Lambert at Canaan (intention July 20, 1787) and dying on January 16, 1845, which agrees with the marriage index; it prints Sherebiah's death as May 1, 1883, which cannot be right if Pamela was his widow in 1843, and the index's 1833 is more likely. The register is a compiled family history, not a record, and it does not say where its parentage for John comes from (register, pages 21-23).

What the family register remembers of his life

The register's account of John goes well beyond the pension file. It says he "served 5 years—four enlistments or more—in the Revolution, being much employed as a scout, taking part at Bennington and many other battles, and once being sent by General Washington from Long Island to Quebec," and admits that "there are many dates and details—somewhat confused—in the Massachusetts Archives and his pension petitions." It adds that he received a land grant of 200 acres from the State of Maine as well as his federal pension.

After the war, it says, he went back to Canaan, Maine, where in 1793 he sold his half-interest in a saw-mill; he was of Lisbon in 1803 and lived for some years in Palmyra. About 1812 he went to Bangor, "where he built some of the old structures, and with his son John was 'a prisoner of war' in 1814 (War of 1812)." In 1819 he settled on a farm in South Exeter, "still known as Oak's Hill," where he died. "Though somewhat fond of his grog, as was proper for an old soldier, he was a zealous Baptist, and meetings were often held in his barn. He was noted for his fund of Revolutionary anecdotes, with which he enlivened even his religious exhortations." The register says obituaries appeared in the Bangor papers and names Barker's poem. It counted over 1,050 descendants, "numerous in eastern and norther[n] Maine."

One roll now points the same way: a descriptive list of six-months men of 1780 enters "Oakes, John, Littleton," "age, 22 yrs.; stature, 5 ft. 5 in.; complexion, light; engaged for town of Harvard," marched to camp July 22, 1780 (Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors, vol. 11, p. 599). An age of 22 in 1780 fits the register's birth in 1757 or 1758. That is two or three years later than the birth his own pension ages imply (about 1754-55). Harvard and Littleton are the towns named in his widow's declaration and for his 1776 captain; the roll does not name his parents. The register's land grant, deeds at Canaan, Lisbon and Palmyra, the 1814 capture at Bangor and the Bangor obituaries have not yet been checked. His 1818 declaration places him at Bangor, which fits the register's "about 1812."

Not the other Exeter pensioner

The 1895 letter on Joseph Oak asks the Pension Office about his grandfather also ends at Exeter. Nathaniel Oak, the Chelsea, Vermont pensioner (file S.18534), applied in March 1839 to have his pension paid at Bangor because he was going to "spend the remainder of his days with his son who resides in Exeter." So two Revolutionary pensioners named Oak ended their lives at Exeter within about two years of each other. Both lines probably lead to Nathaniel Oak of Marlborough and Westborough, which would make the two men cousins if both identifications hold; no record says they knew each other. The story of the Vermont man is on Captain Nathaniel Oak of Chelsea, Vermont.

What we're still looking for

No birth record for John Oaks, no baptism and no town death entry has been found, and the Maine town records of Exeter, Bangor, Machias and Canaan have not yet been searched for his children. The 1780 six-months roll fits him but does not name his parents. Other Massachusetts entries, including a John Oaks, drummer, of Harvard in 1780, have not been matched to him; the pension file does not mention drumming. The marriage itself is proved only by testimony, and where he and Abigail are buried is not known.

Sources

• John Oaks, Revolutionary War pension file R.7758 (Abigail Oaks, widow, rejected), National Archives: pages 1-27, including the declarations of April 4, 1818 (clerk's copy) and June 27, 1820; Abigail Oaks's declaration of October 4, 1843; the depositions of Pamela Lambert and Jesse Washburn, August 31, 1843, and of Henry Sewall, August 25, 1843; the certificate of the Exeter selectmen, October 2, 1843; letters of Joseph Carr, October 10, 1843 and May 20, 1844 (page images from Fold3).
• Lewiston Journal, Illustrated Magazine Section, April 29, 1899, p. 20, "On Maine's Historic Ground" (Newspapers.com).
• David Barker, Poems by David Barker, with historical sketch by Hon. John E. Godfrey (1876), pp. 268 ("Lines on the Death of John Oaks") and the sketch of Barker's life at Exeter; the 1891 Poems, p. 252 (archive.org text, not page images).
• Maine Marriages, 1771-1907 (FamilySearch index; entry for Sherebiah Lambert Jr. and Permelia Oaks, 1787, Canaan); FamilySearch Family Tree for the parents given to Permelia (user-edited).
• Will of Jonathan Oaks of Canaan, December 2, 1784: Patterson, Probate Records of Lincoln County, Maine (1895), pp. 149-151; 1790 federal census, Canaan; list of Revolutionary pensioners, 1840.
• H. L. Oak, Oak-Oaks-Oakes: Family Register (1906), nos. 27 and 31, pp. 21-23, and the Conant note's mention of John, Jonathan and Daniel. Public domain; browse it page by page or read the whole book: PDF, from the Internet Archive.

The family this man may belong to is on Captain Jonathan Oaks: a carpenter from Marlborough to the Kennebec, and the searches made for it are summarized on the research log.