John Lake Jr/Sr (c1759-1828)

Research note by Wesley Johnston, begun 7 Jun 2013, last updated 25 Jun 2015 (correction of minor typo)

Lake Family History - Motivation and Overview of Prior Published Accounts

This is a research note to bring together the progress of my efforts to document what is solidly known about the Lake family, since there is a great deal of conflicting statements presented in published family trees, both in print and online. Much of what is published is clearly erroneous, since it is impossible that all of the conflicting statements can be correct.

The best published source for many years was Claud Nelson McMillan's 1956 privately published book with the full title "A History of My People and Yours: Including the families of: Nicholas Lake, of John 2, of John 1, of Gravesend Plantation, Gravesend, Long Island, and Particularly The Canadian Royalist Lakes, John and Thomas. The Family of Thomas Lake and Sara Peate-Lake of Connecticut. The McMillan Family, descendants of the First Scotch Clan McMILLAN. The descendants of James Woods, of Connecticut. The Family of John Congdon. The Temple Family, of the west. The Descendants of Dennis Cranton, with note on The Allen Family." His great grand nephew Thomas James White (who died 29 Apr 2008), had a web page about the book (familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/w/h/i/Thomas-J-White/index.html), where he noted "Anyone familar with this book will tell you that there are many errors indeed. But the majority of the data is correct."

The McMillian book is supeceded by the 1990 book by Janet Franson Jeffery and Katherine Lake Andreasen (Publishers Press; Salt Lake City, Utah) "History of the James Lake, Jr. Family". Specifically, in endnotes to each section (e.g. pp. 67,77), the authors say this about Claud Nelson McMillan's book" "Ed. Note: Claud Nelson McMillian has done a great service for the Lake Family in compiling this vast amount of information. This book has been a great source of information and clues. He has included many complete documents which assisted us in identifying our people. Unfortunately there have been many errors in some of the dates and information."

Thus I am working from copies of the original documents and from the Jeffery & Andreasen book, and I am not using McMillan's book, except as it has passed through the verification process and used by Jeffery & Andreasen in their book. Thus, my information in the tree that I am building and documenting is going to conflict with any trees based solely on McMillan's book.

I will also reference Russ Waller's 1997 book "Lennox & Addington County Loyalist Families Part One A-L Up-date Revision to U. E. Loyalist Links, Volume II & Supplement". This is an important book, which must be included in any consideration of a Loyalist family. Since he relied on a number of sources, it is sometimes unclear just which source he used for which statement of information, so that it is difficult to determine the credibility of individual statements. But his statements will be compared to the facts in original records and to the findings  of Jeffery & Anrdreasen and of McMillan (where McMillan's statements have been verified by Jeffery & Andreasen).

My work is going to be in bits and pieces, as my limited resources allow. Thus there will be entire branches that simply do not exist in my tree because I have not yet researched and documented them. I will only add to my tree what I can solidly document, either through original record images or transcripts or extracts or through Jeffery & Andreasen's book. Thus the absence of someone from my tree does not mean that they were not part of the Lake family. Although it could mean that, it can also mean that I simply have not yet researched that perosn or branch.

John Lake Jr/Sr (c 1759-1828)

The main document that survives for this John Lake is the probabe of his last will and testament. I do not yet know the exact date of his death. He wrote his will and later (22 Oct 1827) signed it in the presence of three witnesses. The will lists all of his immediate survivors: his then-wife and his still-living children. As Jeffery & Andreasen point out in their book (p. 76), he also had a daughter, Mary, who died in 1816. She filed a land patent claim in 1810, where she identified herself as the daughter of John Lake. Since she predeceased her father, he did not include her in his will.

But this is jumping ahead. Jeffery & Andreasen address the issue of multiple John Lake Jr/Sr references in the records on page 76 of their book. They identify four John Lakes, two of whom are probably this same c1759 John Lake. Since he was the son of John Lake and Margaret Snider, in his early life, he was referred to as John Lake Jr. But after his own son John was born and grew and his father aged and the c1759 John himself became the active John Lake in the community, he would have become known as John Lake Sr. (The other two John Lake references are to his father and to what was probably his brother James' son John - and thus brother of the Mormon pioneer James Lake, Jr.)

When and Where Was He Born?

Jeffery & Andreasen (p. 76) wrote that John Lake was "born about 1760 in New Jersey". Waller (p. 243) shows John "b1759NY".

When was he born?

In fact, John Lake's brother James Lake Sr was born 16 Aug 1760 (Jeffery & Andreasen, p. 2). So unless John and James were twins, which does not seem to have been the case, then if John were the older brother, he would have been born no later than 1759. In fact, Jeffery & Andreasen (p. 2) show the prior brother, Christopher Lake, was christened 18 May 1755. Thus John Lake really could have been born anytime in the period 1756-1759. I am carrying him as "c1759" but just as easily could have chosen c1758 or c 1757 or c1756, since the c for circa (about) indicates the date as an approximation in any case. Waller (p. 243 and again on 244) shows a specific birth year of 1759, which must be taken as an estimate, since it has no supporting documentation.

Where was he born?

Jeffery & Andreasen (p. 76) place his birth in New Jersey. And this is consistent with their research findings (pp. 1-2) of the christenings of John's siblings up to 1761 at Six Mile Dutch Reformed Church in Somerset County, New Jersey, which they viewed (note 2, p. 67) on Family History Library microfilm 961,873 - microfilm of the original record, which they also compared to a hand-written copy of the original that is on FHL film 1,016,886. The hand-written copy does have some errrors, one of which is the year of the christening of James Lake, which is on the original record as 1761 but on the copy as 1760. They further state (p. 3) that this 1760-born and 1761-baptized James Lake's "family moved to New York when he was a very small child" and that they were living in New York by 1777. The bottom line is that all of the children of John Lake and Margaret Snider up to 1761 were born in New Jersey.

This is important, since some published trees, including Waller (p. 243 and again on 244), place John's birth in New York. But the New Jersey church records make it clear that the family was in New Jersey at that time and not in New York. A check of the boundaries at that time of Somerset County, New Jersey, and Ulster County, New York (there was at that time no Washington County, New York) shows that while Ulster County did share a border with New Jersey, Somerset County, New Jersey had two other counties between it and that border. So it seems extremely unlikely that the family would have resided in Ulster County or anywhere else in New York and traveled such a great distance to have their children baptized. Thus the evidence is very strong that the family was living in and the children were born in New Jersey and not New York until sometime after the 1761 baptism of James Lake.

Who Did He Marry and When and Where?

Jeffrey & Andreasen (p. 2) wrote "John married Miss Van Voorheis who died in Ernestown, Upper Canada, and then he married Mrs. (Leah) Doran." On page 76, they add "After the death of Miss Voorheis, John Lake, Jr. (Sr.) married a Mrs. Doran. [citing McMillan p. 254] We believe that Mrs. Doran's first name was Leah, which was stated in the will of John Lake, Sr. There were also several land transactions recorded that involved Leah Lake that were witnessed by J. W. Doran. It is possible that Leah was the same Mrs. Doran that married John Lake, Jr."

Waller (p. 244) lists the wives of John Lake as "1 ____ (n VAN VOORHEES)" and "2MRS LEAH DORAN".

Neither book gives a date or place for either marriage. However, Jeffery & Andreasen (p. 73) show Benjamin Lake, the first child of John Lake and Miss van Voorhees, born 10 Feb 1785 in White Creek, Washington County, New York, citing McMillan p. 255. Thus it seems likely that John Lake and Miss van Voorhees married in New York in 1783 or 1784.

The second marriage is much more of a problem. Jeffery & Andreasen (p. 73) wrote "According to McMillan in his book A History of My People and Yours, Miss Voorheis, the wife of John Lake, Jr. was the mother of all his children." [citing McMillan p, 255] However Waller (p. 244) shows the children up to 1799 as those of Miss van Voorhees and the children from 1801 onward as those of Mrs. Leah Doran. Other than the will, which does not specify who the mother of each surviving child was, Waller lists only a source identified as REID. This was apparently the Cora L. Reid of Enterprise, Ontario, who he lists at the beginning of the book among the contributors. The only thing that does seem to be in agreement is that the second marriage took place at Ernestown, but the date cannot be established.

There is one other item from John Lake's will which may be relevant. Three people witnessed him sign his will 22 Oct 1827: James Lake, James Wright and Elizabeth Dorne. I am not sure if DORNE is the correct reading of the handwriting, but that is how it looks to me. It is possible that this was the spelling of the surname of John's second wife Leah's first husband, which is spelled DORAN in both Jeffery & Andreasen and Waller. Was this John Lake's step daughter or some other person connected to him through his marriage to Leah? I do not yet know.

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More to come ...