Rebecca Trotter Drake

So I have been obsessing a lot about the women in the family.  I've put Lucia Cahoon Drake on hold until I can back up to Michigan and into the files at the Mitchell Research Center in Hillsdale.  Now it's time to obsess about another female who has even less information available.  And I tell you, for someone I know a lot about, I sure don't know anything of value.

When I'm researching a relative, I try to put a face to party, which is extremely difficult to do, but I kinda got a way around it.  I put in the dates and look through the google images, hoping i kind find a face that clicks.  For Rebecca Trotter Drake, I found this painting by Johannes Vermeer.  It's called the Milkmaid.

It is circa 1658.  Rebecca was born in 1655, but it took fashion a long time to make it from Europe to the colonies.  I like the fact that she is muscular with thick forearms and that she's working.  Rebecca Trotter Drake was married to a farmer.

I've also been reading the book America's Women: 400 years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines.  There is a ton of fascinating information about life in the Colonials.  I'll be including that in some of my future posts, but today, I want to get down what I know so I can study it in context.  

Rebecca Trotter was born in 1655 in Elizabethtown, Union, New Jersey, to William Trotter and Catherine Cutbury Gibbs.  Both of the parents were born in Massachussetts. I still need to look at a map to determine how far away Elizabethtown is from Piscataway, where Rebecca ended up.  All 4 of Rebecca's grandparents were born in England, so I'm assuming that she spoke with an modified English accent.

She married John Drake (more about him later) and had a whole passel of kids.  I'm still not 100% sure how many she had ... but at least 14.  She married John Drake 07 July 1677 which means she would have been 22 years old.  From what I've read in America's Women, it was not uncommon for girls to be married at 12 or 13.  Under what circumstance was she allowed to marry so late?

As far as I can tell, these are her children:

1. John  1678-1758
2. Francis 1679-1733
3. Samuel 1680-
4. Joseph 1681-1758
5. Benjamin 1683-1763  This is my line.
6. Abraham 1685-1763
7. Sarah 1686-1744
8. Isaac 1687-1702
9. Jacob 1690-
10. Ebenezer 1693-1740
11. Ephraim 1694-1725
12. Rebecca 1697-1749
13. Abigail 1699-
14. Hannah 1699-1740

There are also many family trees on Ancestry that have two more daughters:  Mary 1700-1740 and Elizabeth 1702-.