John Calvin Drake
The Drake Family cemetery is located on Old Gurley Pike on the old John Calvin Drake plantation. John Calvin owned a huge plantation for two miles on each side of Gurley Pike, west of New Hope, Alabama where the Drake Cemetery is presently located. His last request was to be buried with his slaves, whom he valued and of whom he had become fond. He and they are buried behind the back fence in the field, according to Aunt Lea, his daughter, and Dan C. Drake, Sr., his grandson. It is said that he paid $3,000.00 for a slave, the highest price ever paid in Madison County, Alabama, and that he never broke up a family by selling off a member. He lost his land after the Civil War and several years later, his son, William Wallace, bought the plot where his father and mother were buried and started burying his own family there. There are several succeeding generations of family members buried there. (Original text of Marvin Branum, son of Lucy Drake Branum).
John married Martha Vann, daughter of Unknown and Unknown, on 9 Jul 1835 in Madiison County, Alabama, USA. (Martha Vann was born on 7 May 1815 in Madison, Alabama, died in 1864 in Alabama and was buried in Marquez Cemetery.) |
Another name for John was John Calvin Robin Drake.