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FAMILY REGISTER NATHANIEL OAK OF *MARLBOROUGH, MASS. I. THE IMMIGRANT. I. Nathaniel Oak I. Marlboro (now Northboro), Mass., far- mer; born about 1645; immigrant about 1660-5; rnarried first, De- cember 14, 1686; married second, May 20, 1703; died Westboro, February 17, 1721. First wife, Mehitable Rediat, daughter of John and Ann;—born Sudbury, 1646; died November 25, 1702; no children. Second wife, Mary Holloway, daughter of Adam' and Hannah^ (Hayward), widow of Jacob Farrar who was killed in Philip's War, 1676; born February 25, 1682; married third, Thomas Rice, July 2, 1722 (two children) ; died after 1733. Eight children (2-9). Of our immigrant ancestor's nationality we have only a vague tradition that he came from Wales. Probably he was of English stock; and a writer of 1826 calls him an Englishman. Respect- ing his, age, we have only the conjecture that he was at least as old as his first wife,—40 in 1686. Of his coming to Amrica we have the following record—doubtless his own statement—handed down to his grandchildren and by the son of one of them (John'^ Conant (169) inscribed in the family Bible: "The grandfather of my mother was a cabin-boy on an English vessel bound to Bos- ton. Nine miles from land the vessel foundered. All the ship's crew, except the boy whose name was Oaks, were lost. He, be- ing a good swimmer, swam ashore. In his distress he solemnly promised the Lord if He would preserve him to get to land he would never go onto the water again. This promise he sacredly kept. His wife, my great-grandmother, could never persuade him even to cross Charles River in a boat to Boston. He would always go around upon the neck. Thus he reached his after- home, poor and penniless, without even clothes to cover him ; and as was then the custom, having no friends in America, he was bound out to earn his living. His master set him to work in a pitch-pine forest to pick up pine knots. In this employ he was attacked by a catamount, or wild-cat, which he slew with a large pine knot. His master gave him the bounty the State paid for •"Marlborongh" is the correct spellinfir,b«t througrhontthe text of this history we have nsed aa author's priTilege, and hence the abbreviated form, "Marlboro," appears.—O. O.