Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

tKotes on tJje iFamtls of mt^Ut
During the last ten years the writer has printed " Queries," and has
made, besides, active personal inquiries for any John Drake who was in
New England at the early period when the Will of Francis Drake Esq. of
Esher was dated, 1633-34, but has obtained no trace of any person of the
name except John Drake of Windsor. As his social position and apparent
pecuniary resources correspond to the belief of genealogists and others
that he is the only person who could be the one named in the Will of
Francis Drake Esq. of Esher, and as he is accepted as such by learned
genealogists of the English family of Drake of Esher, we feel that we may
consider the fact established, and shall therefore proceed to give some
account of the family and pedigree of our John Drake as having branched
off from the Drakes of Ashe and Exmouth. As to his particular line
of descent, the antiquary S. G. Drake, late of Boston, said, in "The
New England Histor. and Geneal. Register" for 1870, that, in an extensive
pedigree of the Drakes of Ashe in Devonshire he found "but one John
who could be meant in the will of Francis Drake of Esher, and he was a
son of William Drake of Yardbury, [great] grandson of John Drake Esq.
Sheriff of Devon." This conjecture, however, has been disproved by infor-
mation lately received from Rev. W. T. Tyrwhitt Drake of Hemel-Hemp-
sted, England, with an accompanying letter as follows :
" Dear Madam :
" Great Gaddesden Vicarage,
" Hemel Hempsted, England, June, 1890."
" In reply to a communication of yours of May 2'' which has been forwarded me
by one of my cousins, I enclose you a pedigree which Sir William R. Drake of
XII. Princes Gardens, London (the author of a 'Notelet on Richard Drake of
Esher, London,' privately printed 187S), has kindly furnished me with, and which
he says he believes correctly answers Mrs. Salisbury's enquiries. There were none
of the Tavistock Drakes at the date of Francis Drake's Will, 1633, who had migrated
to New England, though some went to the West Indies.
" The Esher Drakes were Puritans. Joan D. (nee Tothill) to wit :
so
was the
great Sir Francis, and the New England Francis was no doubt called after his (Sir
Francis's) godson Francis Drake of Esher.
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