Nathaniel Oak: what has been searched

Nathaniel Oak first appears in Massachusetts records in the 1680s, married into the Rediat family of Sudbury and Marlborough, and died at Westborough on February 17, 1720/21. Where he came from, and whether he really was the shipwrecked cabin boy of the family story, are still open questions. Searches have covered English parish and port records, Massachusetts arrivals, Marlborough and Middlesex records, newspapers and archives. His life and the story are told in Nathaniel Oak and the cabin-boy story.

England and the crossing

No English or Welsh baptism for a Nathaniel Oakes, Oaks, Oke or Okes between 1640 and 1675 has been tied to him. A 1668 baptism at Great Yarmouth probably reads "Locke," and a reported 1669 christening at Eye, Suffolk, has nothing linking it to Massachusetts. English port books and Admiralty and naval office records are not catalogued in enough detail to show a lost ship or a boy aboard one.

On the Massachusetts side, the printed Boston, Suffolk, Middlesex, Cambridge and Charlestown records and the passenger indexes show no Oake boy arriving or bound out between 1655 and 1690. Diaries and colony records of those years mention only ordinary ship losses, not a wreck with a single boy surviving. The printed General Court, Court of Assistants and Plymouth Colony records for 1655 to 1690 name no Oake but Edward, Urian and Thomas Oakes, and the one wreck they give in those years, the Ellinor & Christian on Salisbury beach in 1669, names no crew, and its case papers are the next thing to look for. Other Oakes men in the colony have not been shown to be related to him.

Marlborough, Westborough and Middlesex

The town and county records say more. Concord records his second marriage, to Mary Holloway, and Marlborough records the death of his first wife, Mehitable, in 1702 and the births of his sons. He is on the 1688 tax list, and probably on a garrison list of March 1691/2. His Middlesex probate file gives his death date, the guardianship of eight children in 1721/2 and the division of his land in 1729, but names no ship and no English home. The Worcester County dockets follow his sons and grandsons, and are collected on the probate dockets page. The moves of the next generations are traced in Where Nathaniel Oak's family went.

Newspapers and books

The shipwreck tradition reached print late. Its earliest known printing is in the Lewiston Journal of April 29, 1899, and the Vermont Phoenix used the words "cabin boy" in January 1900. Books before 1900 say only that he "came from England"; Wales enters later. The Boston News-Letter report of the 1707 raid on Marlborough names no one, so it does not place Nathaniel in the attack at Goodnow's garrison.

Claims in later books and online trees that were checked and set aside include an arrival "at Dorchester, 1660-65," parents named John Oakes and Elizabeth Harrison, and a May 20, 1703 date for his second marriage, which Concord's record gives as March 2.

Archives

The Oak family collection at American Ancestors holds a typed copy of the note attributed to John Conant that tells the cabin-boy story. It probably arrived with Henry Lebbeus Oak's bequest of 1916. The family Bible the note was said to be pasted into has not been found in the archive catalogs searched, and Henry Oak's papers at the Bancroft Library are not described as holding family genealogy.

What we're still looking for

We are still looking for the Bible, the Boston News-Letter issue of August 18, 1707, any town payment of a wildcat bounty before 1721, and an English record that fits. Not finding a record does not mean it never existed.

The full working log, with every search, date and citation, is kept in the family area; family members can sign in to read it. If you have a lead or a correction, send it through the research request form.