History of the Town of Easton
By William F. Chaffin
BENJAMIN DRAKE
PG 44BENJAMIN DRAKE, the ancestor of many of the Drakes of Easton, was born in Weymouth, January 15, 1677, and came here in the year 1700. In June of that year he bought fify acres of land, with a dwelling-house, on what is now the Cynthia Drake road, or Church Street, south and southwest of the old burying-ground, in South Easton. In that house his first child, Benjamin, was born in December of that year. The care of the meeting-house, after it was erected, was for many years his special charge. He served in numerous town offices.
JOHN DRAKE
PG 45JOHN DRAKE was the son of Thomas and brother of Benjamin, both of whom moved here from Weymouth. He bought a part of a share of land of Ephraim Hewitt in April, 1702, and had it laid out in 1703, when he settled upon it. It joined Bridgewater line north of Stone-House Hill, and probably included what became known a century later as the North Daily place. Somewhere on this lot he had his home. He died, leaving seven children, October 10, 1717, his wife Sarah surviving him just ten years.
Lincoln Shepard Drake
PG 659The Hon. Lincoln S. Drake, son of Lincoln and Caroline (Torrey) Drake, was born in Easton, April 8, 1840. He is now serving his twelfth consecutive year as member of the school committee, has been member of the prudential committee of the Evangelical Society for about fifteen years and clerk of the church since 1882.
In politics Mr. Drake is a Democrat, but his well-known independence has made him popular outside his party, and the two principal offices he has held were secured by the aid of Republican votes, more particularly in Easton. In 1882 he was a member of the Legislature, and in the autumn of that year he was elected to the State Senate,- his sound temperance, principles, and his popularity in Taunton and at home, securing his election in a Republican district. In the senate he was on the committees on manufactures, printing, and woman's suffrage. He has served many years on the Easton Democratic committee, has for ten years been a member of the Second District Congressional committee, and its chairman since 1882, and was a member of the State Democratic committee in 1882 and 1883, being on the executive committee in the latter year. In 1880 he was appointed justice of the peace by Governor Long. For twenty-nine years he has been organist of the Evangelical Society. He is engaged in the foundry business in Easton with his brother, Abbott L. Drake.
May 9, 1861, Mr Drake married to Sarah L., daughter of Adonijah and Sarah (Dean) White. They had five children, three of whom are living. Mrs Drake died June 25, 1882; and March 4, 1885, Mr. Drake was married to Ellen M., daughter of Charles T. and Margaret French.
EPHRAIM HEWITT
PG 44EPHRAIM HEWITT is recorded as of Taunton North-Purchase in 1701, and may have been here a little earlier. He was probably son of Ephraim Hewitt, of Scituate, and afterwards Hingham. If so, he was born in 1676. He owned land here in 1700. His home-lot was northerly from Mr. Rankin's, where Mr. Littlefield now lives. A road ran on the south side of his house up to the present road near the track by F.L. Ames's saw-mill. It is interesting to note that he and his wife died on the same day, November 19, 1733, - she going at sunrise, and he following her at the sunset hour.
THE FURNACE VILLAGE CEMETARY
PG 496In the year 1849 Lincoln Drake gave to Daniel Belcher and others a piece of land on the east side of South Street in the Furnace Village, four hundred and twenty-nine feet long by one hundred and fifty-two wide. This they were to manage for burial purposes for the benefit of the village. No corporation has tat this date (1886) been formed though one is contemplated. It is at present under the management of Daniel Belcher. The yard is surrounded by arbor-vitae trees, whose perpetual evergreen amy well symbolize our immortality. An addition of the same length as the old yard, and of one hundred feet in width, has just been made upon the south side by Daniel Belcher. The first interment in the yard was that of Charles Francis, son of Lincoln and Caroline Drake, who died July 16, 1849. There appear to be one hundred and forty graves here, of which forty-three are unmarked. Among once well known citizens whose remains are buried in this yard may be mentioned Lincoln Drake, Tisdale Harlow, Emory Goward, Nahum Williams, Francis and Dwelly Goward, Albert A. Rotch, Henry Hamilton, and Greenfield Williams. One notices here the graves of John Gardiner and Catherine his wife, who Feb. 1, 1880, were burned in their house from an accident caused by two fiery fluids,- rum and kerosene. And those familiar with the place will look at another grave with tragic interest, for they will remember the suspicious circumstances of a woman's death, - the investigation ordered, the exhuming of the body, the discovery of poison in the stomach, the flight of the husband, the reinterment of the body, and its being afterward stolen from the grave. Though the law was foiled, however, justice will yet be done. No man can escape that conscience whose retributive lash will sooner or later wield heavier and sharper strokes than legal justice can possibly inflict. This dreadful affair was not the only instance in which poison was employed by the guilty parties, though in the other instances known to the writer the poison was given to animals as a means of revenge against their owners.
Endnotes: History of Easton, Massachusetts by William F. Chaffin, CAMBRIDGE, JOHN WILSON AND SON, University Press, 1886.
Belcher Home
Belcher Malleable Iron Foundry
Maps of Easton
Rev. Joseph Belcher
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