Biography - David Drake
DAVID DRAKE is a worthy member of the farming community of Pickaway
Township, Shelby County. He was born in Fairbanks Township, Sullivan County,
Ind., March 22, 1836. He is a son of Benjamin Drake, who was a native of
Ohio, of which his father, James Drake, was for some years a resident,
settling there in pioneer times, prior to his removal to Indiana in 1817. He
was one of the first settlers in Fairbanks Township, where he bought a tract
of Government land, on which he at first built a log house for the shelter
of his family. At that time, and for some years after, the county was
sparsely settled, and deer, wild turkeys and other game were very plentiful.
The grandfather of our subject continued to reside in that region on the
farm that he had developed from the wilderness until his death.
The father of our subject was but eight years old when the family sought to
build a new home in the primeval forests of Indiana, where he was reared to
pursuits of industry. He early learned the trade of a tanner, and then
bought a yard, which he operated for a time. He finally sold it and engaged
in farming for a while. He then bought another tanyard, and carried on a
tannery in connection with farming some years, he lived to a ripe age, dying
on the home farm in Sullivan County, Ind., in 1880. He had married in early
manhood, Sally Gross, who was born either in North or South Carolina, and
died at the home of her son in Sullivan County in 1885. She was the mother
of ten children, all sons.
Our subject received his education in his native county, where he grew to a
stalwart manhood. The first school that he attended was taught in the
primitive log schoolhouse of pioneer days. It had a clay and stick chimney,
being heated by a huge open fireplace, and in the aperture made by a log
being taken out of the side of the house a row of window glass admitted the
light. The benches were made of slabs, without backs, and the furniture of
the school room was entirely of home manufacture.
Mr. Drake resided with his parents until he was twenty-two years old, when
his father gave him a tract of timber land in Fairbanks Township. He built a
log house, and in that humble abode, he and his bride commenced their
housekeeping, and lived in happiness for some time. He improved the land and
made it his dwelling place until 1869, when he sold it at a good price in
order to identify himself with the farmers of Shelby County, as he had a
high opinion of the fertility of the soil of this region and the many other
advantages it possesses, and rightly judged that he could do well at his
calling in a section so favored. He purchased eighty acres of his present
farm, which is pleasantly located on section 14, Pickaway Township, and he
has since added to his realty, and now has one hundred and twenty acres of
choice farming land, finely cultivated and amply supplied with good
improvements, including a substantial set of farm buildings.
April 15, 1888, our subject took an important step in his life whereby he
secured the companionship and assistance of a devoted wife in the person of
Miss Keziah Anderson. Their union has been blessed with children of whom
these seven are living: Alexander, Mary Frances, Cameron, Charles, Sarah J.,
Commodore and James V. Alexander married Viola Polly, and has one child
named John; Mary Frances married George Williamson, and has three children —
Ellsworth, Rosanne and Etta; Sarah married John M. Hill, and has two
children — Martha and Lydia.
Mr. Drake is sound in his political views which find expression in the
tenets of the Democratic party. Both he and his good wife are members in
high standing of the Baptist Church, and their community finds in them true
friends and kind neighbors, who are ever ready to extend a helping hand to
those who are in trouble and want.
Extracted 13 Jan 2018 by Norma Hass from 1891 Portrait and Biographical Record of Shelby and Moultrie Counties Illinois, pages 444-445.
