1. Samuel¹ Drake was born about 1690, probably in England.¹⁷ Although he and his descendants moved in company with the Scotch-Irish, Samuel was probably English. The family tradition indicates this. Samuel proved his importation into the colony of Virginia in Orange County on 16 March 1735 along with Robert Bickers, Richard Parsons, and John Walker.¹⁸ He probably came through the port of Philadelphia and then moved on into western Virginia.¹⁹ Persons named Breckenridge came to Orange County just a few years later, so the association between the two families goes back to the 1730s or so, even though they may not have come from the same place in the British isles.

A few years later in 1739 a "Samuel Drak" is listed in Orange County with three tithes.²⁰ This suggests that two of his sons were then of age greater than 16 years and thus born before 1724.

Samuel and his sons settled in extreme southwestern Virginia near or across the border with North Carolina and Kentucky. In 1755 Benjamin Drake, John Drake, and Samuel Drake Sr. are mentioned along with others regarding a disturbance on the Yadkin River area of northwestern North Carolina.²¹ The reference to Samuel Drake as "Sr." at this date clearly identifies him.

The family seems to have drifted back into Virginia after this date, for in 1763 a Samuel Drake is mentioned in the inventory of the estate of William Thompson of Bedford County, Virginia. An appraisal of this estate for 1766 also mentions "Saml Drake," and an account of this estate in 1767 mentions John Drake, Saml Drake, Sam Drake, and Benja Drake.²² Inasmuch as there seem to be two Samuels mentioned, one of these might be the elder Samuel¹ Drake or perhaps one of a younger generation.

Marital information for Samuel is not available, but it is likely that those Drakes associated with him were his sons.²³

Probable issue of Samuel¹ Drake include:

+        2.        i.    Samuel² Drake, born before 1724, of whom presently.

+        3.        ii.    John Drake, born before 1724, of whom presently.

          4.        iii.    Thomas Drake, born about 1725, probably in England. He was involved in
                     fighting the Indians in 1759, and in 1764 he filed an unsuccessful claim for
                     reimbursement for furnishing three servants in that conflict.²⁴

          5.        iv.    Benjamin Drake, probably born after 1723. He appears to have settled in
                     western North Carolina, and he and his sons migrated into Tennessee.


16   In addition to labeling the generations "first," "second," etc., I have used the Generational Grid designation to make it easier to fit these generations into the overall Drake family. See the Genealogist’s Magazine, December 1998, p. 142, for details of this system.
17   It is possible that Samuel was from near Exeter, Devonshire, for George Boone, the grandfather of Daniel Boone was from nearby Stoke Canon parish. The Exeter area was a center of Presbyterianism at the time. The earliest close associates of these Drakes seem to have been the Boones.
18   "Importations in the Orange County, Virginia Order Books," Magazine of Virginia Genealogy, Vol. 26 1988, No. 3, p. 172. Unfortunately no place of origin is indicated for these four individuals. Most of the entries state "Great Britain or Ireland" as an origin. However, from internal evidence more of the earlier entries were Englishmen, whereas the later ones were Irishmen. In the same record book a few years later we find for May 1740 Alexander Brackenridge, Jane, John, George, Rober, James Smith, Jane & Letitia Brackenridge (from Ireland).
19   Ships traveling from the German Palatinate sometimes stopped in Dover on their way to Philadelphia at this time, so it is possible passage could have been obtained through Dover.
20   Orange County Tithe Lists, Virginia Tax Records, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1983, p. 293.
21   Journal of North Carolina Genealogy, Volume, XI (1965), p. 1552; Saunders, The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, Vol. 5, p. 494. This same record mentions Jno Campbell and Alexander McCulloch.
22   Abstracts of Bedford County, Virginia Wills, Inventories, Accounts, 1754-1787, pp. 2, 3, 14, 15, 186.
23   Those familiar with the Drake family of western Virginia will recognize these children as among those Drakes placed as sons of John Drake and Mary Weldon by Nell McNish Gambill in The Kith and Kin of Captain James Leeper and Susan Drake, his Wife, National Historical Society, 1946, pp 23-45. This work is flawed by a lack of citations of record evidence. Gambill said that she inferred some of her relationships from an old family chart. I believe the material she published shows clear internal evidence of misidentification of generations. It appears she or her source found indications that a Samuel Drake was a son of John Drake, but mistook Samuel³ (John², Samuel¹) for Samuel² (Samuel¹). This "threw back" John a generation earlier making him his own father! I cannot find Mary Weldon in record evidence, and I think an attempt to connect with the Sir Francis Drake family influenced Gambill’s conclusions. Since the Gambill book, this line has been repeated many times in print, with more or less skepticism. For the latter, see for example Michael E. Drake, The Search for the Ancestors and Descendants of Henry Brasater Drake of Coles County, Illinois, Heritage Books, 1996. A full analysis of the Drake family of western Virginia is beyond the scope of this paper.
24   McIlwaine (Ed.), Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia 1761-1765, (1915), pp. 133, 236, 238. The immediately adjacent entries in another printed volume record a successful petition of Robert Brackinridge for reimbursement of a sum of money advanced to three men of his company of Virginia Militia when stationed on duty at Fort Chiswell in 1761. (Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck, Virginia Colonial Soldiers, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1988, pp. 181-2, 183.)