Jonathan Lake

Notes:

Jonathan's birth record shows him to be a son of Joel. His birth is recorded in both Tiverton and Little Compton, according to James N. Arnold's VR of RI.

Jonathan married Abigail Craw 28 Oct 1731, Tiverton, RI. [Group Sheet]

1. Margaret Lake was born 21 Dec 1731, Tiverton, RI.
2. Giles Lake was born 18 Jun 1735, Tiverton, RI.
3. Richard Lake was born 18 Aug 1737, Tiverton, RI.
4. Mary Lake was born 4 Oct 1740, Tiverton, Newport Co., RI; died Oct 1816.
5. Jonathan Lake, Jr. was born 11 Jan 1748/49, Tiverton, RI.

Notes:

Joel's birth record identifies him as a son of David, Sr., & Sarah Lake.

Joel married Sarah Bailey Abt 1704. Sarah was born Abt 1685. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Sarah's maiden name as Bailey was obtained from a genealogy at Rootsweb's Worldconnect, and has not been verified by me. The marriage records of the children idenfy her as Sarah.

Notes:

The following notes are from John O. Austin's "Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island."

David [Lake] was a freeman at Portsmouth 27 Feb 1669 [I found the date of 16 Oct 1668], and his earmark (for his livestock) was recorded 29 Mar 1669. On 22 Sep 1679 he bought land on the Taunton River (in Dighton, Somerset, and Freetown, MA) and also at Sippican (Rochester, MA) and Acushnet (New Bedford, MA). In 1689 he was a proprietor at Dartmouth, and a Selectman at Tiverton on 28 Jul 1694 and again in 1698. On 16 Mar 1696 and in 1698 he was Town Clerk of Tiverton. On 11 Mar 1702 he was Moderator of the Tiverton Town Meeting. On 15 Jun 1709 he, then of Little Compton, deeded to Zaccheus Butts his land rights in Dorchester and Stoughton, MA, which had been inherited from his uncle Thomas (probably Lake).

"Thomas LAKE [Henry & Alice's son] ... was brought up in the family of his uncle, Thomas LAKE of Dorchester. ... He was a soldier under Capt. Benjamin CHURCH in Philip's War, as was his brother David. ... On 1 Nov 1676, Plymouth Colony granted 100 acres at Puncatest (Tiverton) to David and Thomas LAKE for their services in Philip's War, of which David was to have 60 acres (Plymouth Col. Rec.). This land was afterwards included in the bounds of the Pocasset purchase, with the result that a bitter dispute arose between the Lakes and the Pocasset proprietors." (source: MORIARTY, G. Andrews: The Early Rhode Island LAKEs, published July 1935 in The American Genealogist and New Haven Genealogical Magazine, Vol. XII, No. 1, pp. 17-24.)

David married Sarah EARLE Abt 1677. Sarah (daughter of Ralph EARLE and Joan SAVAGE) was born Between 1640 and 1645, Dorchester, MA; died Abt 1690, Tiverton, RI. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

I have roughly estimated Henry's year of birth.

COLKET, Merredith B.: Founders of Early American Families: Emigrants from Europe 1607-1657, 1975, published by the General Court of the Order of Founders and Patriots of America as a Contribution to the Bicentennial of the U.S.A., Cleveland, Ohio.
Page 170:
"LAKE, Henry: Dorchester, Mass., 1651; Portsmouth, RI, 1651; Dartmouth, Mass.; died after 21 Feb 1672/73. Wife executed for witchcraft. Sources: Wilbour's Little Compton, 1967; The American Genealogist, 12:17 (desc.) and 19:225 (note). Believed to have left numerous progeny."

DEMOS, John Putnam: Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, 1982, Oxford University Press.
[ISBN 0-19-503378-7]
Page 71:
"It is significant, moreover, that many children of accused witches went on to useful even successful lives. Thus, ... David LAKE, the younger son of Alice (convicted and executed at Dorchester in 1651) was a leading man in the town of Little Compton, Rhode Island." [source indicated: G. Andrews Moriarty's The Early Rhode Island Lakes, in The American Genealogist, XII, 17-24.]

Pages 301-302:
"The process of dispersal is a little easier to follow for the family of Alice LAKE, convicted and executed at Dorchester in about 1650. Her husband Henry moved away at once; his name appears regularly in the records of Portsmouth, RI, beginning in April 1651. Meanwhile the four LAKE children, all less than ten years old, remained in Dorchester. One, probably the youngest, was 'bound out' by the town meeting to a local family for a 'consideration' of 26 pounds--and was dead within two years. The other three were also placed in (separate) Dorchester households. At this point their trail becomes badly obscured. (One was living as a servant to an uncle--still in Dorchester--in 1659.) Later, having reached adulthood, the same three were found in Rhode Island--and then in Plymouth Colony, where their father had removed by 1673. It appears, therefore, that the family was eventually reunited, some two decades after the event that had broken it apart."

Henry married Alice Unknown Abt 1640. Alice was born Abt 1617, England; died Abt 1651, Boston, MA. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

I have roughly estimated Alice's year of birth.

Alice, our ancestor, was executed for witchcraft in Boston in 1650. She was the wife of Henry Lake. There is some information about her online at other web sites. Innocent Lake is a descendant of hers. The story is that Alice had had a baby who died, and was so overcome with grief that she kept seeing her baby and was tormented by this. It was alleged that she was being visited by a demon, and must be a witch. Complicating this circumstance was the problem that losing her baby also brought to her great feelings of guilt, because apparently she had had relations with another man before marriage and felt that she was being punished for that in the loss of her child. Rather than receive the help she needed, either repentance and forgiveness, or other good counsel and support from other women, she was caught up in the whole witchcraft scare and as result executed.


The following notes are from Alice Marie Beard's web site [http://members.aol.com/alicebeard/lake.html]:
BURR, George L. [editor]: Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases 1648-1706, 1914, Scribner's.
[Collection of old essays, collected and edited by Burr, a professor of medieval history at Cornell University.]
Quoting John HALE's "A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft," 1702, [one of Burr's selected narratives]:
Pages 408 & 409:
"Another that suffered on that account some time after, was a Dorchester Woman [in a note Burr makes it clear that Hale was speaking of Henry LAKE's wife]. And upon the day of her Execution Mr. THOMPSON, Minister at Brantry [Burr notes, Braintree, MA], and J.P. [Burr notes, probably John PHILLIPS of Dorchester according to Farmer**] her former Master took pains with her to bring her to repentance. And she utterly denyed her guilt of Witchcraft: yet justified God for bringing her to that punishment: for she had when a single woman played the harlot, and being with Child used means to destroy the fruit of her body to conceal her sin and shame, and although she did not effect it, yet she was a Murderer in the sight of God for her endeavours, and shewed great penitency for that sin; but owned nothing of the crime laid to her charge."
Page 409-410, note:
"In Hale's account there seems some confusion with the case of Mary Parsons." . . . "And two or three [women accused as witches] of Springfield, one of which confessed; and she said the occasion of her familiarity with Satan was this: She had lost a Child and was exceedingly discontented at it and longed; Oh that she might see her Child again! And at last the Devil in likeness of her Child came to her bed side and talked with her, and asked to come into the bed to her that night and several nights after, and so entred into covenant with Satan and became a Witch." . . . "This was the case of Mary Parsons and her husband Hugh, whom she accused (1651). See Drake, Annals of Witchcraft, pp.64-72, and especially the appended papers of Hugh Parson's case, pp.219-258. The originals of these papers are now in the New York Public Library. Others, from the Suffolk court file, are printed in the N.E. Hist. and Gen. Register," XXXV, 152-153.]
[**NOTE: Another researcher, Benjamin Lake Noyes, surmised that "J.P." was John POPE, husband of Alice POPE.]
Pages 408 & 409, note:
Burr quotes Nathaniel Mather as writing on Dec. 31, 1684, to his brother Increase talking about Alice LAKE; "H. LAKE's wife, of Dorchester, whom the devil drew in by appearing to her in the likenes, and acting the part of a child of hers then lately dead, on whom her heart was much set." BURR notes his source as "The Mather Papers."

http://www.alicemariebeard.com/genealogy/maternal/lake.htm

Notes:

Ralph is said to have come from England to Boston, MA in 1634. Records show him at various times in Newport, RI; Portsmouth, RI; and Darthmouth, MA. His will is dated 19 Nov 1673, proved 14 Nov 1677, Portsmouth, RI. The will names his wife as Jane, but sometimes it is given as Joan. His five children and one grandson are mentioned in this will. See Alden Beaman's "RI Genealogical Register," Vol. 3, No. 1.

Ralph married Joan SAVAGE 29 Jun 1631, Stortford, Hertfordshire, England. Joan was born 1606, Stortford, Hertfordshire, England; died Aft 15 Sep 1699, Portsmouth, RI. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Her name is sometimes given as Joan.