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St Louis National Historical Company 1883, History of Howard and Cooper
County, Missouri Written And Compiled From The Most Authentic Official
And Private Sources, (Reprinted 1973; The Printery, Clinton, MO.), 545
Howard County George W. Drake, Jr.,
"George W. Drake, Jr., farmer, section 14. George W. Drake, Jr., commenced life for himself without a single advantage that nature did not give him; brawn and brain, vigor and honesty, were all he had. Education, except very limited, such as he had been able to pick up in early youth, means to begin with, nor the prestige of an influential family he did not have. Starting out in the world alone, at the age of eighteen (when he came to this county), he worked three years as a journey-man at the blacksmith trade, and was then able to get a small tract of land (a part of his present farm of 550 acres), on which he went to work with an energy and intelligence that he has brought him more than an ordinary measure of success. He has long been comfortably fixed in life, has reared a worthy family, and has maintained a name above reproach. To such an ancestor, his descendants of the future will well be proud to trace their origin. He was born in Marion county, this state, March 14, 1836. Death robbed him of both parents in 1852, one following the other across the silent river the succeeding day. "Death never takes one alone, but two!; Whenever he enters in at a door,; Under roof of god or roof of thatch,: He always leaves it upon the latch; And comes again ere the year is o'er,; Never one of a household only." Joseph Drake, his father, and his mother, whose maiden name was Martha A. Chambers, were both originally of Jessamine county, Kentucky, but died in Lewis county, this state, to which they had removed. They had a family of thirteen children, five of whom are still living --- Joseph C., and Kate (now Mrs. James Collison), both of Glasgow; James M., of Louisiana, Missouri; Mary S. (widow of Coulmbus Merritt, of St. Louis), and George W., the subject of this sketch. George W. Drake, Jr., was married January 15, 1857, to Miss Julia A., daughter of Judge David Pipes, of Boone county. She was born August 3, 1838. Eleven children have been born to them, five of whom are deceased --- Mary Maud, David Piper, Joseph, Sallie, and Stella. The family now consists of Mattie, a highly cultivated lady of charming manners, Lou, Ernest, Charles D., Georgia, and Wade Hampton." |