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Scan of page 23 of the 1906 Oak family register
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FAMILY REGISTER
15
as we learn from Hyde's Hist. Winchendon.
By reason of failing
health and
financial
troubles
he
sold
1767-72
to Kinsmen and
others
all
his
land except
the home
lot. which
also the family
had
to give up
after
his
death,
as
the
estate proved
insolvent.
Among
his
literary
treasures
as shown by
the
inventory was
"Mr.
Miller's Sermon on
the Totel Reduction
of Canada"—re-
calling his experience in the French war.
His descendants num-
ber about 500.
Name "Oaks" and "Oakes."
II.
Seth.
Athens, Vt., carpenter and farmer; born Westboro,
Mass., April
8, 1733; married Bolton, May 25, 1757
(inten. Sep-
tember
13, 1756)
; died Townshend, Vt., about 1814 (or probably
April 24,
1810.
Wife, Elizabeth Shevally of Stow, Mass.; seven
children
(54-60).
Capt. Seth Oak—so known for his military service as was the
custom of the time, though never a commissioned officer—was of
Col.
Oliver
Wilder's
regiment
of
horse
from
Bolton,
mus-
tered September 27, 1755.
In 1759-60 he also served in the army,
his family meanwhile living in Harvard, perhaps with his uncle
Jonathan.
On his return he lived for a while in Templeton
; and
with
his brother William settled
in Winchendon
1763-4, buying
a part of
his brother's land
1767-70.
His house,
later occupied
by Eben Arnold, "was west of the bridge and long causey."
At
the Lexington alarm of 1775 he served 14 days as sergeant in
Capt. Hale's company, Col. Sparrowhawk;
in May, 1775, he was
of Capt.
Wilder's company,
Col.
Doolittle, and
in October-De-
cember was quartermaster sergeant at Winter Hill.
As early as
1763, Lunenburg, Vt., was chartered to a company of which Seth
Oak was
a member.
Traditionally he became
disgusted
with
his grant before reaching
it, and sold out for a glass of grog!
In
the
fall of
1779, however, he
left Winchendon
for the Vermont
wilderness, and with Jonathan Perham and Ephraim Holden built
a log cabin in Athens,
to which they brought their families in the
spring of 1780.
Seth and two of his sons were original grantees
of
the
town;
his
daughter
Polly was
the
first
child
born
in
Athens; and some of his descendants still live near the site of the
first cabin.
The farm was that occupied in 1900 by Daniel Wil-
cox, just south of the brick church.
In 1784 Seth's military zeal
was again utilized in a militia force called out by the Sheriff.
He
spent his last years
in Townshend with his daughter, Mrs. Wis-
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