Seth Oak of Winchendon and Athens: a captain's company and a Vermont justice

When Stephen Boynton's widow Tabitha swore out her Revolutionary pension claim, she told the court what she knew of her husband's last service, and she named the man he served under: "In the year 1777 he enlisted under Capt. Seth Oaks of said Winchendon for one year, went from home I think the first of May the same year and remained in the service until he died, he died as I was informed by said Oaks and others the second day of October following." Her statement survives in file W.14670. Seth Oak has no pension file of his own. He appears in other people's, and four of them (Atherton, Symonds, Boynton and Calvin) name him as their captain.

Born at Westborough, 1733

The Westborough town clerk entered it in these words: "Born unto Nathaniel Oak and Tabitha his wife the first Day of April 1733 a son named Seth Oake," baptized April 8. The father was probably Nathaniel Oak Jr., who married Tabitha Rice at Marlborough in February 1726/7, as the story of Nathaniel Oake Jr. and Kezia of Bolton explains. Two Rice wills, in printed abstracts, probably name him: Edward Rice's of 1741 leaves to his "gr. sons ... William Oakes and Seth Oakes," and his widow Lydia's of 1752 names "William and Seth Oakes" among her grandchildren, the names of Tabitha's sons.

An enlistment roll dated September 15, 1755, for a regiment of foot raised to reinforce Major General Johnson's army, bound for Crown Point, includes the name Seth Oak, between Fairbank Moor and Benja Bridge. The roll names no colonel or company. Nourse's history adds that the Lancaster-area men on this roll served in Col. Josiah Brown's regiment and in the companies of Capt. Jeduthan Baldwin and Lt.-Col. John Cummings, with the muster rolls in the Massachusetts Archives, and prints the roll from the papers of Col. Oliver Wilder. This is probably the same Seth: the surname, the era and the Lancaster-Bolton area fit, though the roll gives no town, age or parents.

A Seth Oak, probably the same man, married Elizabeth Shevally (Chevalier) of Stow at Bolton on May 25, 1757. Harvard's records enter Calvin (born September 12, 1758), Katharine and Seth to Seth and Elizabeth between 1758 and 1760; Templeton enters Nathaniel on May 3, 1762 and Salome, baptized in 1764. At Winchendon, Marvin's history lists Salome (1764), John (1766), Thomas (1768) and Ebenezer (1771). The names run through all of these entries, which probably follow one family.

At Winchendon he and his brother William farmed on opposite banks of Miller's River: in 1771 the town chose a committee "to rebuild the long bridge over the river between the two Mr. Oaks', who lived on either side" (History of Winchendon, p. 136), which fits the register's placing of William's house "east of the bridge and long causey" and Seth's "west of the bridge," a house "later occupied by Eben Arnold."

A company in 1777

A "Seth Oak, Winchendon" is on the rolls as a sergeant at the Lexington alarm of April 1775 and later a quartermaster sergeant, and an orderly book of Doolittle's regiment for July and August 1775 is catalogued at the American Antiquarian Society under "Quartermaster Sergeant Seth Oak (1733-1810?)." By March 1779 Winchendon's school committee included "Capt. Seth Oaks" (Marvin, p. 124).

The orderly book itself survives. Its title page reads "SETH, OAK, His Orderly Booke 1775," and its first page begins "A true copy of all the General Orders given to the Army of the United Provinces of North America; from the time his Excellency General Washington took the Command," with the general orders of July 3, 1775, at headquarters in Cambridge. A note at the top of the title page records it as the gift of Mary C. Stone of Worcester on February 11, 1958. The volume has not been digitized; in October 2026 the Society's library sent the two photographs below, and explained that the dates "1733-1810?" in its catalog came from the Library of Congress name authority file, not from a record of his death.

The rank is borne out by statements about service in his company in 1777. Zebedee Symonds, aged sixty-six when he applied in April 1818, wrote that he "belonged to Capt Seth Oak's company in Col. Letterlow's regiment for one year ending March 6 AD 1778, as appears by two discharges herewith inclosed." The year before "I belonged" is hard to read: 1777 or 1778. Thomas Atherton of Shutesbury, aged seventy-nine in September 1832, said he "enlisted and entered the service as a blacksmith in a company of Militia commanded by Capt. Seth Oaks of Winchendon," in which "Luther Graves was Lieut." He marched through Springfield to the North River, crossed at Kings Ferry, and went to Pennsylvania, where he was with the baggage wagons at Brandywine and "employed in shoeing horses" at Valley Forge until late March, probably 1778 (the last digit is unclear), after "about twelve months." Josiah Beaman's file (S.30266) is reported to name Seth as captain too, though that page has not been seen, and Atherton's declaration mentions a Beaman deposition, so the two may not be independent.

The men were recalling their service late in life. A Pension Office clerk in 1840 reportedly wrote that Seth Oaks "probably acted as Capt. but was a subordinate officer"; that comes from a source summary, and the letter has not been found. Even so, the statements of Symonds in 1818, Atherton in 1832 and the Boynton widow put one Winchendon captain over a company in 1777, and Atherton's lieutenant, Luther Graves, is also the one Calvin Oak's widow names in her declaration, which places Calvin at Winchendon when that service began: "Capt. Seth Oaks, Lieut. Luther Graves & Ensign Chapman."

None of the pension statements supplies a commission, and the two other sources disagree. A War Department reply of May 8, 1916 independently states that a Captain Seth Oaks commanded a Company of Artificers of the Continental Troops, citing a muster roll of September 7, 1777 and a commission dated March 19, 1777; it does not say "of Winchendon." The 1906 register says he was never commissioned: "Capt. Seth Oak—so known for his military service as was the custom of the time, though never a commissioned officer." The commission itself has not been seen.

Winchendon's town records, printed in its 1868 history, name a captain without a first name. At a meeting on May 22, 1777 the town "Voted to allow £18 to each man who went with Capt. Oaks," and the history adds that "the destination of Capt. Oaks is not given"; a committee report accepted in March 1778 then left it to the town "as to them men that went with Lt. Parmenter and Capt. Oaks" (History of Winchendon, pp. 92-95). Nourse's Military Annals of Lancaster (p. 185) lists "John Wheelock, 1777; 'Capt. Oaks.'" among the town's soldiers. Seth is the probable captain, but none of these records gives a first name.

The printed Soldiers and Sailors compilation also lists a "Seth Oak's Co. of Artificers" among the Continental troops; Atherton, a blacksmith who shod horses at Valley Forge, and the word "artificers" fit one another, but none of the pension statements uses the word, and no original company muster or pay roll has been checked to join the Winchendon captain and the artificer company directly, so they are probably, but not certainly, the same.

Athens, Vermont

The secondhand account in the 1891 Vermont Historical Gazetteer places Seth Oak among five men who chopped a few acres and built a log hut at Athens in the fall of 1779. The account goes on: they all left on February 25, 1780, and Jonathan Perham and Ephraim Holden came on with their families, "soon followed by Seth Oak and family from Winchendon," with the snow four feet deep. "The next May Mrs. Oak was delivered of a daughter, the first child born in Athens." It lists Seth, Nathaniel and Calvin Oak among the original proprietors, says the settlers met "at the house of Capt. Seth Oak," and says Seth "was the first justice of peace in town." The 1906 register names that first child: "his daughter Polly was the first child born in Athens." It also keeps an earlier story: "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!" The same chapter says another settler married Abigail Johnson in 1783 "by Seth Oak, Esq."

Two newspaper notices of the 1780s, found by the same library, name him in his own time. A warrant printed in the Massachusetts Spy of Worcester on May 13, 1784, and twice more that year, is addressed "To SETH OAK, Esquire, Justice of the Peace within and for the County of WINDHAM." More than a sixteenth of the proprietors of Athens had petitioned for a meeting, and he called it for the second Thursday in June at the house of Samuel Bailey, to choose officers, settle with two former treasurers, lay out more land and decide on a lot of 168 acres "proposed to be given for encouragement towards building of mills in said Athens." He signed it "SETH OAK, Justice of the Peace. Athens, April 15th, 1784." A notice in the Vermont Gazette of Bennington on July 25, 1785, which the library found in several Vermont papers between 1785 and 1809, lists the original owners of Lunenburgh, Vermont, "their heirs or assigns," who had not paid a tax of six pounds on each original right; "Seth Oaks" is among them. It shows that the right stood in his name, not that he went there, which fits the register's tradition that he gave up his grant.

The register remembers that "In 1784 Seth's military zeal was again utilized in a militia force called out by the Sheriff" (p. 15). Goodrich's printed Vermont rolls show Seth Oak assisting the sheriff in September 1782 under two separate musters: five days, September 16-20, in Captain Josiah Fish's company of the 1st militia regiment, Colonel Stephen R. Bradley commanding (pp. 609-611, Seth's row on p. 611), and two days, under an Athens detachment that mustered on Colonel Fletcher's order of September 10, 1782 and marched toward Guilford to assist the sheriff, Captain Ezra Chaffee commanding (pp. 807-808, Seth Oak and Nathaniel Oak each allowed two days).

A November 1895 War Department copy of Chaffee's account, a copy rather than an independent record, shows the same Athens march and records Captain Ezra Chaffee swearing his oath in January 1783, with Seth Oak acting as the justice of the peace who administered it. A February 1784 payment entry on the upper part of p. 609 belongs to the preceding account, Capt. Ebenezer Wood's, and is not part of Seth's row. No record we have read places him in Vermont service after September 1782.

His sons

Calvin Oak of Athens, who died on November 10 (or 8), 1815, has a widow's pension, W.19932. Lucretia Oak says she "believes" Calvin also served a year under "Capt. Seth Oaks"; she has "no documentary proof." The Calvin of Athens is probably the Calvin born at Harvard in 1758 to Seth and Elizabeth, in which case the belief would be of service under his father. A Nathaniel Oak of Bolton enlisted at Springfield on July 13, 1780, "age 18," which fits Seth's son Nathaniel, born at Templeton in 1762, and the Athens Nathaniel Oak whose widow's file is W.25398 (a slip inside reads S.25398; this is a different man from the Chelsea pensioner, S.18534) and who said he lived at Bolton in 1780. These records probably concern one man, Seth's son. The inspected pages of this file name his 1780 service under Nixon and an unidentified three-month term; none names Seth as the captain of the artificer company.

The 1906 register, which lists them as children of Seth and Elizabeth Shevally, adds to each. Calvin, a farmer and carpenter, was "of light complexion, height 5 feet 6 inches; called 'Captain' on his tombstone"; he went to Athens in 1780, was one of the original proprietors, and his farm was "that now owned (1896) by George Swan, near the scythe-snath factory." Nathaniel "was a Revolutionary soldier, marching from Bolton, February 13, 1780, at the age of 18, under Captain Thomas Pritchard; height 5 ft. 7 in." (the register's date and age differ from the Springfield roll's); the register admits "much confusion" over his other enlistments, and says he was a proprietor of Athens "but perhaps did not go there with his father." It also copies a story from Hemenway's Vermont Historical Gazetteer (which the register calls her "Historical Atlas of Vermont"): "Nath'l Oak wanted a certain bewitching beauty; Amaziah Rockham wanted the bewitching beauty too," and the neighbors settled it with a fight. Rockham "gave Oak, who was slow and clumsy at fighting, a sound whipping, but was so good hearted withal that, he said, 'Go and take the girl,' and Oak went and took her and lived with her long enough to twice claim a silver wedding." Seth's daughter Saloma, "Sally," married Capt. Samuel Wiswell of Townshend, who "held town offices, and was lieutenant of militia"; she is the Mrs. Wiswell with whom Seth spent his last years (register, pages 28-29).

What we're still looking for

No record of Seth's death has been found. The 1906 register says he died at Townshend, "about 1814 (or probably April 24, 1810)"; the Edmund Rice Association's pages give 1810; the AAS catalog's "(1733-1810?)" carries a question mark. The register adds that "he spent his last years in Townshend with his daughter, Mrs. Wiswell, appearing on the tax-list there in 1810" (register, pages 15-16). We have not seen his commission, a muster roll for the 1777 company or Symonds's discharges; the artificer company is known from the printed Soldiers and Sailors entry and the 1916 reply, not from the original 1777 roll. Elizabeth's death is not known, and of his daughters only Saloma and Polly are traced.

Sources

• Westborough town record of Seth's birth and baptism, April 1733; Ward, Genealogical History of the Rice Family (1858), p. 39 (wills of Edward and Lydia Rice); Edmund Rice Association pages (Seth, b. 1733, d. 1810).
• Nourse, Military Annals of Lancaster (1889), p. 34: enlistment roll of September 15, 1755, for a regiment of foot raised to reinforce Major General Johnson's army, bound for Crown Point (image on this site, shown inline above); the original muster rolls Nourse cites have not been seen.
• Vital Records of Harvard and of Templeton; Marvin, History of Winchendon (1868), pp. 124, 464.
• Stephen Boynton, W.14670 (declaration of his widow Tabitha, page 4); Zebedee Symonds, W.15415 (declaration of April 1818, page 12); Thomas Atherton, S.30250 (declaration of September 18, 1832, page 5); Calvin Oak, W.19932; Nathaniel Oak, W.25398. Josiah Beaman, S.30266 (reported to name Seth as captain; page not seen).
• War Department reply of May 8, 1916 to an inquiry about Seth Oak's service, naming him commander of a Company of Artificers of the Continental Troops and citing a muster roll of September 7, 1777 and a commission of March 19, 1777 (page images shown above: first, second); the original 1777 roll itself has not been seen.
• Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, vol. 11 (entries for Seth Oak and Nathaniel Oak); American Antiquarian Society finding aid for the orderly book of 1775.
• Goodrich, Rolls of the Soldiers in the Revolutionary War (Vermont), pp. 609-611 (Capt. Josiah Fish's company, 1st militia regiment, Col. Stephen R. Bradley, sheriff assistance, September 1782) and pp. 807-808 (Athens detachment under Col. Fletcher's order of September 10, 1782, Capt. Ezra Chaffee), page images read; a November 1895 War Department copy of Chaffee's account of the same service and of Chaffee's January 1783 oath, administered by Seth Oak as justice of the peace, page images read.
• Vermont Historical Gazetteer, vol. 5 (1891), Athens chapter, pp. 357-366.
• Seth Oak, his orderly book, 1775, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester (catalog record 271921, catalog.mwa.org/Record/271921): photographs of the title page and first page supplied by the Society's library, October 2026. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.
• Massachusetts Spy (Worcester), May 13, 1784: warrant for a meeting of the proprietors of Athens, signed by Seth Oak, Justice of the Peace, April 15, 1784; and Vermont Gazette (Bennington), July 25, 1785: notice to the original owners of Lunenburgh, Vermont. Copies supplied by the American Antiquarian Society, October 2026.
• H. L. Oak, Oak-Oaks-Oakes: Family Register (1906). Public domain; read the whole book: PDF, from the Internet Archive.

The wider family is on Where Nathaniel Oak's family went, and the searches are summarized on the research log.